Assistant Socceroos coach Graham Arnold has put a positive spin on the time change for Australia's opening World Cup qualifying match against Uruguay, suggesting the late night fixture would in fact help his side.

Reports coming out of Montevideo had suggested the November 12 match would be moved back five hours to a 9pm starting time in order to ensure the Socceroos missed a commercial flight back to Australia.

Football Federation Australia (FFA) confirmed the time change on Tuesday after they received official word from world governing body FIFA.

While the FFA has so far refused to comment about the change - allegedly done on a tit for tat basis after the FFA refused to allow Uruguay to hold the Montevideo match a day early - Arnold said he can see only positives.

"It doesn't bother us too much, in fact it might be a little better because a lot of the players will be coming from the cold climate of Europe to the hot climate of South America and the 9pm start means it will be cooler for them," Arnold said.

Arnold felt rather than causing any disarray to the Socceroos' plans for the World Cup showdown, the delayed kick-off would instead give them more time to prepare.

"It will give us an extra training session on the day of the game," Arnold said.

Arnold dispelled speculation that the lateness of the final whistle could make it difficult for the Socceroos to get home quickly after the match.

"No, not as far as I understand, there will be no problems at all, we have Australians helping us over there," he said.

An FFA spokesman would not be drawn on arrangements to whisk the Socceroos away from the Estadio Centenario to get back to Sydney as quickly as possible ahead of the second leg on November 16.

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