The Australian football team has booked the places in the Olympic tournament. Australia and South Korea also booked their places in the final qualifying round alongside resurgent Malaysia, while United Arab Emirates dashed North Korean hopes with a narrow 2-1 aggregate win.

But the biggest casualty of the night was China, who had a player sent off and a goal disallowed in Muscat before humble Oman scored three goals in extra time to run out 4-1 aggregate winners.

The Australian football league recently signed with the mega deal that will be remembered as the recordbreaker for broadcast rights. The biggest sports rights deal in Australian television history was finalized Thursday with the Australian Football League and broadcast partners free-to-air broadcaster Seven Network, paynet Foxtel and telco Telstra Corp. inking an AUS$1.235 billion ($1.32 billion), five-year arrangement.

Australia’s bold plan to achieve global recognition and become an instant footballing powerhouse came to a shuddering halt on December 2, 2010. Less than a decade after the sport reached its lowest ebb domestically, winning hosting rights to the 2022 World Cup would have completed the ambitious transformation.

Alas it was not to be, with Qatar being awarded the showpiece event. The relative merits, or lack of, regarding Qatar’s bid have been discussed in considerable depth throughout the media, and this piece does not aim to rehash this argument.

Australian footballer Ljubo Milicevic has said that drug use in Australian Football League (AFL) is the worst thing. The 30-year-old central defender also said that the anti-drug code is covering up the substance abuse.

“The first thing an AFL footballer said to me when I got back to Melbourne and I was in a nightclub was, ‘do you want a line of coke?’ I said I was happy with a shot of Agua,” Fox Sports quoted Ljubo Milicevic, as saying.

Australia were defeated by Japan by a solitary goal in the Asian cup recently. Tadanari Lee scored in the 109th minute at the Khalifa Stadium in Doha, Qatar. Lee was left alone in the area and volleyed a cross from Yuto Nagatomo past Mark Schwarzer for his first international goal.

Japan previously won the four-yearly continental championship in 1992, 2000 and 2004. It had been tied on three titles with Saudi Arabia and Iran.

Australia was playing in the final for the first time since joining the Asian Football Confederation in 2006.

The Australian national football team defeated India by four goals in the Asian cup football. India who for the first time since 1984, appeared at the Asian Cup were thoroughly outplayed by the Aussies. Tim Cahill opened the account for Australia by scoring the first goal in the 11th minute of the game. Cahill struck again in the 65th minute of the game when he headed a free-kick from Wilkshire.

The other two goals were scored by Harry Kewell and Brett Holmann.

Leeds United's Kilkenny is set to get an Australian call up for the next international tournament. Kilkenny last played for Australia against China in 2008 but was named Tuesday along with two uncapped players in coach Holger Osieck's 23-man squad for the Jan. 7 to 29 tournament.

Striker Robbie Kruse, who plays for the Melbourne Victory in Australia's A-League, won his first international call up along with Denmark-based goalkeeper Nathan Coe. Kruse has scored 10 goals in 15 A-League matches this season and replaces regular striker Josh Kennedy who has a back injury.

Australia seem to be pretty disappointed with the result of the World Cup bidding and recently a commentator expressed his anger over the decision. Murray, also a member of FIFA's ethics committee, said Qatar had the weakest technical reports of all the bidding nations for 2022, but still won the vote 14-8.

He said FIFA was "in big trouble" for voting for the oil-and gas-rich nation as the host of 2022 World Cup.

Australia won a lot of awards at the recently held Asian football confederations awards at Kuala Lumpur. Australia’s first win of the night came in the Dream Asia award, the new award for 2010 is given in recognition of service to the AFC’s involvement in social development, named after the AFC’s social responsibility initiative.

Australia are set to go up against Germany after a friendly has been scheduled between the two nations. Football Federation Australia (FFA) and the Deutscher Fussball-Bund (DFB) today announced that the Qantas Socceroos will meet the German National Football Team “The Mannschaft", in an international friendly match at Borussia-Park in Mönchengladbach in Germany on Tuesday 29 March 2011.

FFA CEO Ben Buckley said the match was part of a strategic plan aimed at getting the best competition possible for the Qantas Socceroos over the next four years.