Australians may use Darwin as base for Asian Cup

The Socceroos are considering setting up a training base in the Australian tropical city of Darwin for next year's Asian Cup amid fears Asia's premier footbnall tournament could be targeted by terrorists, the Australian government-owned Australian Brodcasting Corporation has reported. Football NT chief executive Bill Miller said the move was being considered because of concerns about security surrounding the tournament, which will be held in Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand and Malaysia next July. He said the Socceroos could end up based at the newly-built Marrara soccer stadium and flying to the Asian venues the day before games. "With recent events in Asia, the coup in Thailand etcetera, they want to put them in a safe environment," he said. "They'd base them in Darwin and fly them in probably in the day before to play the game and fly them back to Darwin again."