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According to the Australian Financial Review, Jiayuan Group, the Chinese proerty developers underwriting the Southern Expansion A-League bid, have pledged to build a new, $300 million dollar stadium, but where?
It’s an astonishing amount of money that they are talking about, but where will it be built?
Firstly, there’s no detail on spectator capacity, which is important. Along with building the new stadium, they also want to upgrade WIN Stadium to 30,000 seats – that’s a good guide, this means the new one needs to be close to rail.
Endeavor Field is a two-kilometre walk from the nearest station, or about the distance from Central Station to Moore Park. We know how popular that is with Sydney FC fans. The only other option is Kogarah Oval, which is about 600 metres to trains.
As the report in AFR notes, it will be a “purpose-built football stadium” i.e. “soccer specific”. This will leave the St George-Illawarra Dragons kicked out of Kogarah completely. WIN Stadium could also lock them out if Southern Expansion want an exclusive lease.
Apart from having better rail access, Kogarah is owned by the NSW government, whereas Endeavor Field is owned by the Sharks. Are the Sharks going to sell up to a new A-League team who will turn it into a football specific stadium and kick them out? I don’t think so.
People seem to think that Endeavor Field is a done deal because it is based in Sutherland, where most of their supporters would come from, but if Jiayuan build a stadium at Kogarah, they can knock out the Dragons from two of the three areas they are targeting.
People in Sutherland will still have to travel through St George past the new stadium if they want to watch Sydney FC. Wouldn’t they prefer the closer option?
And without the Dragons in St George, there are more people who could become fans of the new team from that area. Furthermore the Sutherland Shire Football Association have said they would only be willing to help set up a team they wouldn’t own.
The Sharks, meanwhile, according to Lyall Gorman, would allow Shark Park to be used as a venue for a new team but have no plans to apply for an A-League license themselves. The idea came up last year that they could potentially own an A-League team under the Sharks brand, but this might not sit well with Jiayuan, who want to promote their own.
So if Endeavor Field remains under Sharks ownership, that just leaves Kogarah Oval, subject to government approval.
Southern Expansion seem to have Morris Iemma on board, who could potentially help to get approval for a sale of Kogarah.
The former premier told The World Game, “I’m a football follower who is from the St George area, and we talked about the issues they faced – home grounds, future development of their own stadium, that sort of thing.”
He went on further, saying, “They’ve met with the relevant State MPs and they obviously want the State MPs on-side and I know them all. I’ve dealt with them in the past, and I deal with them in my current capacity as the commissioner for planning for southern Sydney.”
Since the interview, the bid team have been active in courting politicians with Les Murray and Craig Foster addressing over 50 state MPs, Councillors and key stakeholders at NSW parliament, with Jiayuan chairman Shen Yuxing also present.
So getting government approval to buy Kogarah Oval might be possible.
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Strategically it would also appeal strongly to FFA if they can knock an NRL team out of the Sydney market and redeveloping Kogarah Oval as a football specific stadium would do that. That might be another reason why they are so keen.
But beyond what Dragons fans might make of all this, what would the new Southern Expansion team’s fans think of the St George location? Trying to bring the three regions together will be the biggest challenge.
Southern Expansion are talking about investing serious money into the region, but will money be enough?
They’ve lost enough fans in Wollongong already with the way they talk down the Wolves as not being viable on their own, not to mention ruining WIN Stadium by turning it into a stupidly oversized stadium with 30,000 seats and blocking out the view.
Adding another stand and blocking out the view would be like doing the same thing at Gosford: just plain nuts.
The biggest question though is whether FFA would allow teams from both areas to join in the next round of expansion. Southern Sydney could stand on its own and get crowds around 10,000 to most matches and 20,000-plus to derbies. But you could say the same about Wollongong.
Wollongong would then have three Sydney teams as rivals, plus the grudge match with Central Coast. They’d also have big matches with Perth, who they have history with, and Melbourne Victory always draw a big crowd. Adelaide and Brisbane could also get decent turnouts at WIN Stadium.
Southern Expansion talk up having nine derbies in Sydney but adding Wollongong would add a further nine big matches to bring the total to 18.
Another advantage of Wollongong is that it balances out Southern Sydney, who most fans around Australia already hate before they’ve even had a match. If you don’t like ‘new football’ you can support the Wolves from ‘old soccer’ instead.
Wollongong could be a soothing yin to Southern Sydney’s raging yang.
Simply put, no other combination of two teams has as much potential to raise average crowds across the A-League as these two. If crowds are the primary metric for expansion, this is the best combination.
The matches between Southern Sydney and Wollongong could get quite heated, then you have Southern Sydney versus the Wanderers, who Jinyyan previously tried to buy out, and of course Sydney FC won’t like them one bit either. The media will love all this.
If FFA want to add two new teams, maybe they should put them both in. Let a thousand – well, no – just two flowers bloom.
It’s going to be a wild ride.
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