And if that means covering up the brand names on TVs with black tape, or brand-name snacks on the menu board at a food outlet, or ordering A-League clubs to spend tens of thousands of dollars on blocking out stadium naming rights signage, that is what will happen. If only they showed the same amount of effort and ingenuity when it comes to promoting the sport. It's emblematic of the way Asian football operates – corporate interests and VIPs (or VVIPs) come first, the rigid enforcement of various rules and regulations comes second, and everyone else comes later. If there's time. Vibe: A knot of Socceroos fans gets into the spirit in Al Ain. Some ticketed supporters were denied entry. Credit:AP Sadly, that attitude is one of the major factors holding back this year's Asian Cup in the United Arab Emirates – and, indeed, football as a whole in this part of the world – from reaching its potential.

This was an opportunity to change some perceptions of Middle Eastern football, and at a good time, too, with the 2022 World Cup in nearby Qatar just around the corner. Instead, those perceptions have been reinforced. Loading The on-field action at UAE 2019 has been, on the whole, good. The gap between Asia's traditional powerhouse nations and the so-called minnows continues to close, and the expansion to 24 teams has proved to be a winner. Some truly exciting players have emerged. It's just a shame there's been so few there to see it. Crowds have roughly halved since the 2015 Asian Cup in Australia, where the average attendance figure was 20,303. The talk around the traps is that such a decline was expected because the UAE is a small country in terms of population and going to matches isn't part of their culture. So . . . why isn't more being done about it?

On-the-ground marketing is almost non-existent. There is no "tournament vibe" to speak of. Taxi drivers, who are usually a good gauge of this sort of thing, generally have no idea when matches are on. There has been no concerted effort from the AFC or the local organising committee to tap into expat communities, despite the presence of hundreds of thousands of locally based Indian and Filipino workers. Indeed, many matches are on during work hours. The lack of atmosphere has had an impact on the quality of matches. As A-League fans can attest, small crowds make for bad games and big ones make for good ones. This Asian Cup has proved it again. Flying solo: Australia's Jackson Irvine wins a header against Uzbekistan in front of a bank of empty seats at Khalifa bin Zayed Stadium in Al Ain. Credit:AP Tickets, to be fair, are cheap enough, starting at 25 dirhams ($9.50). But buying them is one thing – actually using them to get inside is also proving to be a challenge.

At least a dozen Socceroos fans with valid tickets were held up for more than an hour at the Rashid Stadium before Australia's 3-0 win over Palestine then told at half-time that they couldn't go in. There have been similar problems at several other games. It’s more than a little jarring to go from the Dubai Mall – an enormous shopping complex replete with an indoor aquarium, zoo and ice skating rink – to a match where there are not enough staff present to deal with the crowds. Surely a little more of this country’s garish opulence could have been directed towards the running and promotion of this tournament. Surely a little more of this country’s garish opulence could have been directed towards the running and promotion of this tournament. Yet it seems the prestige of simply having it in the UAE is more important than actually making it as good as it could be. The only effort organisers seem to be going to when it comes to attendances is ushering the few fans who do turn up and happen to get through the turnstiles to move into seats on the broadcast side of stadiums so they don't look so empty on TV.