Australia’s football chiefs said Thursday Graham Arnold will stay as national coach despite mounting calls for his axing after the team’s failure to automatically qualify for the World Cup.

The Socceroos’ bid to directly make a fifth straight World Cup ended with defeats to Japan and Saudi Arabia over the last week.

It thrust them into an Asian qualifying playoff against the United Arab Emirates on June 7, with the winner then facing Peru a week later to book their spot in Qatar this year.

Continue reading this article on Sports Desk. 

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.