Socceroos legend Tim Cahill had planned on a managerial career, but has now set his sights on a much more ambitious target

The full time gig is chief sports officer of Aspire Academy, Qatar’s ambitious sports project which looks to develop elite athletes, while also being a hub for international teams looking for training camps.

But Cahill has other jobs. Many jobs. His LinkedIn page is brimming.

Ambassador for FIFA. Ambassador for Qatar’s Supreme Committee (the World Cup organisers; Qatar don’t do titles, or anything else, by half). He’s on the board of a club KAS Eupen in Belgium (owned by Qatari interests), helps the Sri Lanka and Liberian national associations and represents a number of sponsors.

And he has his coaching badges.

Coaching was meant to be his future. On the touchline, taking a team forward.

“I was definitely interested in becoming a manager in the Premier League, or assistant manager,” Cahill says. “[But] I thought I’d never be home.”

Instead, he went to school.

A business course at Harvard.

A FIFA sports management diploma, picking up knowledge all along the way.

Some of the best titbits actually came from when he was thinking the touchline was for him. While completing his coaching badges, he spent time with master manager Carlo Ancelotti, while the Italian was with Cahill’s beloved Everton.

While other managers like Pep Guardiola and Jose Mourinho have cult followings, with personality as much a factor of their mystique as their achievements, Ancelotti, by comparison, has quietly built a resume for the ages, winning domestic titles in all five of Europe’s big leagues (England, Italy, Germany, Spain, France) and four Champions League titles.

For Cahill, time spent with the calm, assured Ancelotti helped set him up for the next stage of life.

“The one-on-one time I had with him every day was fantastic, because he gave me an insight into managing people,” Cahill says. “Everyone wants to constantly find solutions, but he isn’t bothered by things you cannot control.

“Sounds simple, but he actually implements it.”

Cahill says Ancelotti helped him see what the future held.

“I was 41 and I wasn’t in a rush to be a manager,” he continues. “He told me to breathe, you can be a manager whenever you want.”

So instead, Cahill looked at administration and dived straight in.

*****

Mention Qatar in football circles and opinion is immediately divided.

The tiny gulf state, home to fewer than three million people, won the World Cup hosting rights under dubious circumstances in 2010 when bribes flew around the hallways of FIFA like dust in a desert storm.

The twelve year lead-in has been laden with controversy, from accusations of poor human rights for migrant workers to concerns about gay rights, or there lack thereof, and a fan experience far removed from the grog-infused gatherings of World Cups past.

Cahill, who bounced around the world after his time in England, knows there are legitimate concerns, but argues there is proof this will be a successful World Cup.

It’s not his to organise – Cahill’s full time job at Aspire is separate to the Supreme Committee’s organisational structure - although he is an ambassador and is happy to offer his point of view, which leans heavily on diplomacy.

“I lived in India and China, and travelled around the world through the Middle East with the national team,” Cahill says. “Wherever you go, you respect the culture.

“Same way as when people come to Australia, we expect people to respect our country. Qatar is a very hospitable country. With the fan zones and the ability to go to two games in a day … it will be an amazing World Cup.”

Cahill was in Doha for the Socceroos’ successful qualification game against Peru. He helped facilitate the stay and preparation, which all helped in getting past the South Americans.

Once qualified, Cahill helped broker a deal to ensure the Socceroos will have the best possible preparation for the tournament. The team will stay at the Aspire Academy, a sprawling campus where every possible element toward sporting excellence is catered for, from training pitches, recovery facilities and five-star living areas.

It’s a cross between the Australian Institute of Sport and a resort for the rich and famous.

“What the Socceroos will have as a set up will be seamless. It will blow them away,” Cahill says.

Hosts Qatar will stay there, and possibly Ghana, with the other 29 nations staying in hotel accommodation scattered throughout Doha.

“Other nations won’t have that as good, there’s going to be some massive benefits,” Cahill says.

*****

Cahill has a curious relationship with the game in Australia.

He was dropped as an aspiring teenage football player by Sydney Olympic. Too small, too slow was the knock. In retrospect, a regretful decision for the club, but key for Cahill, because ever since, he’s had something to prove.

He scored 50 goals for the national team, and is rightly the leading contender in the debate of who is the greatest Socceroo of all time.

Cahill only played one season in the A-League, with Melbourne City in 2016-17, and shifted the needle in terms of attention and status for the competition. But season two turned to frustration and he departed back to his first club in England, Millwall, to ensure he got to a fourth World Cup.

This opened him up to criticism about whether he has given back to the Australian game enough, which seems a ridiculous accusation considering all he achieved in a Socceroos shirt.

This week, Cahill was in Brisbane to spread word of Qatar‘s World Cup, but also to catch up with the Socceroos. On Thursday night, just before the game against New Zealand, Cahill spoke at a function to celebrate the 100-year anniversary of the team.

The room of 400 fell silent as Cahill recounted what the shirt meant to him, through the story of his 2006 World Cup. The night before the opening game he was in the starting line-up, and visualised all that was necessary to make an impact on the game.

The next morning, after Guus Hiddink changed his mind, Cahill was told he was on the bench.

“It ripped me apart,” Cahill told the room.

Of course, he used that disappointment as fuel when Hiddink introduced him in the second half against Japan, scoring not just the Socceroos first World Cup goal, but also a second in a famous win.

The story encapsulates why the world has opened up to Cahill, and why he’ll never be confined by domestic borders. He is full of fuel to make an impact in whatever he chooses to do. It could have been as a manager, but now, it’s about strolling the corridors of power.

“The touchline, I will leave that for others,” Cahill says. “It’s in the boardroom and at a higher level I think I can be really productive with international projects and learning more about how the game is run.

“My journey is to become fully qualified to run football clubs and federations, at a level that allows me to work with FIFA.”

“Twenty years as a footballer was great. You get in the door.

“But now I have a ticket that gets me a seat at the table.”

One day, he could be at the head of it.

“Big thank you to Sydney Olympic for that,” he says to end our interview, before going to the next meeting, and the next opportunity.