A-League expansion decision coming soon

The point is that Wollongong is a football town. It is arguably the most popular sport in the city, and with the possible exceptions of Newcastle (and in the last fifteen years, the Central Coast), it is probably the only city in Australia that can make that claim. Wollongong is the least saturated sports marketplace in Australia. There is no cricket (save perhaps the odd Shield game). There is no AFL, nor will there ever be. There is very limited rugby league here, with the Dragons playing a handful of games (often against the least interesting opponents). There is the NBL (the Hawks) and that is it. I also believe that the Wolves would attract bigger crowds to the A-League than the crowds we had back in the days of the NSL.

17500 paying customers as opposed to 6500 what is your point mate a club need paying customers to buy good players and be successful clubs dont look at statistics they look at the end result and turnover clubs are businesses more customers more money

Depends how you measure crowds. If you measure them on aggregate, we will not be the biggest. If you measure them relative to the population, we will be amongst the highest in the country. About 1 in 50 people in Wollongong attended each game on average when we won the grand finals in 2000/01 and 2001/2. (6,000 average crowd in a city of 270,000 at the time.) In contrast, about 1 in 250 people in Melbourne attended each Victory game last year, to watch the ‘most popular’ side in the A-League (17,500 average in a city of 4,500,000).

i agree south Melbourne has passionate fans and when you hear that trumpet GO hey hey greek or not, you too will want to be blue and white because we are f,,,,n dynamite . As for sydney well bring back the northern spirit they had great support and very tribal and local and will not cannibalise syd fc ,Thats the chemistry its about passion its about tribal its about identity .Its happened only twice this chemistry and name 1st melbourne victory and 2nd WSW i dont see it happenning again

con I agree with everything you're saying, but once again, the reality is that Nikou has come this far, in part, because of support from the two Melbourne clubs (along with Adelaide, and it's probably not a stretch to suggest that the Southern federations have supported him as well). In other words, whatever the Melbourne clubs want, don't be surprised if that's precisely what Nikou backs.

“If govt’s need to pitch in to help build football stadiums then they should.“ Yeah! $2.3 Billion should do it.

Wollongong great soccer community but lets not go overboard their NSL crowds were poor thats why they fell out and did not get into the A league poor crowds, will be the same as central coast , but still i would love to see them in, as they is talent and its not all ways about being the biggest as for melbourne they can have four teams easy its a big city, sport mad and not fickle like sydney anyway sydney has got better weather why go to footy, soccer or NRL poor crowds all ways, as for the hype Sydney fc gets pretty low crowds again

spot on ,,look i am a developer and builder by trade even if i was super rich and reality none of this two proposed entries have such a rich man behind them, but even if u are filthy rich you still would not go spend 150 million or 200m on a stadium that is not yours, those millionaires dont become rich by building stadiums for communities to enjoy, we dont have this people in Australia, so when west melb say it will be a privately funded stadium i reckon BULLCRAP and who will underwrite it and be guarantor not those rich dudes ,i dont think so and in this financial climate ummm try go get a loan right now even the mega rich Chinese are getting knocked back ,The banks are super tight ATM and for a while to go dont believe the hype its all pie in the sky team 11 and west melbourne

Its not all about melbourne victory, thats what happens when clubs become to powerful they start to dictate in areas that they should not get involved in ,anyway what are they scared off they are powerful and have a great brand name and are a solid club, that no one will go near them ,but i do know a south melbourne derby is going to be super duper game to see , i predict massive crowds and sell out every time they play, no doubt in my mind ,all the old soccer supporters that were scrapped and chucked out will follow south Melb ,i thing Hiedleberg ,Melbourne knights fans and so on will come back and see them as this team will represent the old forgotten and unjustly dumped NSL era

Caledonian thistle is a Scottish team So thistle would not allowed

Makes too much sense to have Wollongong , but they don’t listen to people like us . they will bow to the south Sydney sharks and Melbourne Dandenong tumbleweedd and we will continue to see dire crowds and ratings . That is the way it’s headed unless we see massive reversal in interest Eventually we will go back to semi pro and npl nsw will be the elite competition in Australia.

Talking about stadium for next season for new teams

there will be no excitement as two more teams from Sydney and Melbourne is not what the fans want .The league is all to concentrated in Sydney and Melbourne as it is .i still reckon was a mistake not to include the Wollongong wolves so much support for a team from the south coast region 600,000 area history a stadium and real passionate fans from a huge diverse ethnic mix all follow soccer one of the biggest junior participation in the country ,13,000 juniors just in Wollongong plus the rest of the south coast over 30,000 juniors play the game .FFA are stupid .

That's right, it's just something which needs to be acknowledged (and in this particular instance, adds a bit of intrigue).

With the SE Melbourne bid, ultimately it's the local council seizing on an opportunity to get some investment into their local community, which, means State and Commonwealth government funding. Can't blame them for at least giving it a go. But yes, you're right, pretty outrageous that the taxpayer would fund a stadium for the sole use of a yet-to-exist privately owned entity operating out in the sticks.

If govt's need to pitch in to help build football stadiums then they should. Heaven knows how much money they tip into dead end sports in this country. It's about time the imbalances need to be corrected and start to flow into favour of sports that are followed by the under 55's. Yes football and basketball.

Ahhhh Politics, it happens everywhere, from grassroot clubs to the biggest sporting organisations in the world & everything in between.

It's worth adding that it's well known that both Melbourne clubs backed Nikou (and the Victory actually had Adelaide's proxy), so in a perverse way, the Tarneit bid makes sense from the perspective that the two Melbourne clubs would see it as a non-threat (and oh boy, what a massive non-threat it would be). In fact, Victory already on the public record to say that they would like to see a 3rd Melbourne club, but not one playing anywhere near the Melbourne CBD (exactly where a club is the most likely to be successful).

This is a really good question. Theoretically, the new Board can do whatever it wants. Nikou has publicly stated he wants to move as quickly as possible, but some off the board members haven't even seen the bids. The answer will lie in the personal agendas of each board member, and what side their bread is buttered. Who do they owe what favours for getting them where they are?

I like the name Tarneit Thistle. In the old days of the British Football Association, there were a few clubs which carried the moniker Thistle. Time to bring it back. Apart from that , con is right, Taraneit is nothing but sheep paddocks inland from the Werribee sewerage farm. The idea that people are going to commute to watch games out there in large numbers is comical.