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.

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.

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.

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 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.

The Australian Football Federation (FFA) are in the process of implementing FIFA backed diving bans. The Australian Football Federation (FFA) are the first to implement these regulations, with two players recently sanctioned for diving in order to win penalties.

The Australian Football Federation spokesman Rod Allen said: "We deem diving as a serious issue in the game and something we feel strongly about.

"We hope that with serious sanction it will be a deterrent. We want to stamp it out."

FIFA has cleared all the misconduct charges against Australia ahead of its 2022 World Cup bid. FIFA wrote to FFA on Friday to say there were no grounds to open a case and the matter was closed. FFA chief executive Ben Buckley said he was pleased reports published in Fairfax newspapers were shown to have no substance. FFA has opened legal proceedings against Fairfax over the reports, which alleged the FFA had used various financial incentives to gain favour with FIFA committee members.

Australia coach Pim Verbeek will probably have to make do without experienced defender Patrick Kisborno at this summer's World Cup after the 28-year-old sustained an Achilles injury.

Kisborno picked up the injury in Leeds United's home match against Millwall on Monday and was forced to leave the pitch after only eight minutes of play.

"I am absolutely gutted for Patrick. His dream was to play in the World Cup and it looks like that dream has been shattered," Leeds manager Simon Grayson was quoted as saying by reporters.