The worst kept secret of the last 24 hours has been officially confirmed, with the FFA today announcing Western Melbourne Group and Macarthur-South West Sydney have had their A-League application bids approved.
That wasn’t the only bombshell dropped at today’s press conference, however, with FFA chairman Chris Nikou also revealing that the A-League was working to establish the feasibility of a second division of competition in the near future.
In a press release, Nikou said he’d seen “unprecedented interest” from bidders to join the competition, lauding the news as allowing the A-League to “create new rivalries, bigger television audiences, more derbies and importantly, further opportunities for Australian footballers to play at the highest level in this country.
“One of the key factors in our decision was the long-term growth opportunity for each club in each new geography. South-West Sydney and Melbourne represent some of the biggest growth corridors in Australia,” he added.
In a highly competitive and drawn out process that formally began in May of this year, the Western Melbourne and Macarthur-South West Sydney bids were officially unveiled as the successful ones at a press conference this afternoon.
Western Melbourne will begin play in the 2019-20 season, while Macarthur-South West Sydney won’t join until the 2020-21 season amidst reports Western Sydney Wanderers demanded a full season at their upgraded home ground before their new local rivals joined the competition.
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Gallop admitted during the press conference that the “dislocation” of the two Sydney teams from their normal venues “was a factor” in the third Sydney club’s delayed introduction.
The news has proved controversial among A-League fans, with many cynical about whether the decision to add a third team to each of Australia’s most populous cities constitutes genuine expansion.
Nikou, however, was keen to point out they weren’t just going to stop at 12 clubs.
“Our work on expanding the Hyundai A-League does not stop here. This is the start of a journey which will see our competition grow beyond 12 teams in the future.
“In particular, we acknowledge on this occasion that a license has not been granted to the Canberra region. We do, however, continue to view Canberra as an attractive opportunity for potential future expansion,” he added.
Gallop also made special mention of the unsuccessful Canberra and South Melbourne bids, claiming the league was keen to keep talking to them but, when pressed on why those bids were unsuccessful, only cryptically said the other two bids outweight them “on the pluses and minuses”.
In total, 15 bids were submitted by the May deadline set by the FFA earlier this year, although just a month later that list was reduced to ten, with Tasmania, Gold Coast, West Adelaide, Fremantle and inner-Melbourne’s Belgravia Leisure all scratched off the list.
The list was further whittled down to eight bidders in August, with Macarthur and South West Sydney merging their bids and Brisbane City getting the chop, before a final six was settled on in October as Ipswich Pride and Wollongong Wolves were cut.
Of the final six, many considered the joint Macarthur-South West Sydney bid and Team 11 (South-East Melbourne) as the frontrunners.
A perceived lack of development in Western Melbourne’s proposed area was thought to be a stumbling block, although it was reported the Victorian government was much more amicable to funding the public transport infrastructure that bid required, as opposed to the stadium funding sought by Team 11.
Western Melbourne are privately funding a stadium in Tarneit, which is said to have been designed purely with football in mind, but will play out of Geelong’s GMHBA Stadium until it is completed in 2022.
As far as W-League expansion goes, Greg O’Rourke reiterated the current expansion process “never included” the women’s competition. He claimed the FFA did still want to expand the W-League, but noted any claims by bidders about women’s teams were nothing more than the team claiming “they’d love to have W-League team”.
Simon Brown
Roar Rookie
Great to see the FFA making a move. Hopefully onwards and upwards from here!
Andrew
Guest
It will be Macarthur Rams. If you know history in Australia, John Macarthur is the founder of the sheep industry in Australia.
Punter
Roar Rookie
WHO????
Dart
Guest
I don’t get it. Canberra and Wollongong are overlooked because they are not big enough markets, and then the successful bid is going to play at Geelong. On an AFL ground. And then move somewhere else. Doesn’t sound like that bid is ready.
Brainstrust
Roar Rookie
When do they pay the license fee. At the start of the A-league only one team came up with the full license fee of 1 million let alone 13 million. So they could both fall over. The only thing West Melbourne can offer is having a lot parking right next to the ground, forget public transport. Public transport would be more useful for selling housing. South West Sydney the problem with that its like Penrith at the far end of the area, where most people dont live, the overlap with the Wanderers would be very little as the distance between the two is about 40km. The 20km closest to Leumah would have about 200 thousand, the 20km closest to Parramatta would have about 800 thousand and Parramatta have a population to the north as well.
Sydneysideliner
Guest
Knowing state governments it'll all be about delivery. There's every likelihood that WMG will be waiting years for the already funded rail upgrades, while Team 11 required a stadium to be funded and built within a couple of years, which would be impressive for Qatar, let alone Australia
Sydneysideliner
Guest
What exactly is the hardship WSW will suffer from Macarthur coming in next season? Lederer's comments are a sign that expansion will get much harder from here on, with a combined need to meet metrics and to avoid the slightest perceived overlap with current A-league clubs.
Matt
Guest
I agree with the black and white ... but id call them Macarthur Athletic
Kangas
Roar Rookie
They will be playing at the Whiiten oval Call them the western bullfrogs
Mister Football
Roar Guru
The Age reporting: Western Melbourne yet to strike formal agreement to play at Kardinia Park Although the Kardinia Park Trust has been in discussions with the consortium about playing games at the venue when they enter the competition in 2019-2020, their games will need to fit in with the needs of their major tenants and annual events such as Big Bash games involving the Melbourne Renegades. Geelong Football Club have their AFL, AFLW and VFL teams all using the venue for training and games with the Cats' AFLW team, which enters the AFLW competition in 2019, kicking off the season at GMHBA Stadium under lights in early February. The club has been training in recent weeks at Deakin University while the surface is relaid. The trust is also planning to complete the stadium redevelopment with the recently re-elected Andrews government pledging $102 million to the stage five redevelopment. Discussions are still taking place as to when that redevelopment will start and what impact it will have on the stadium's availability. Brown was confident the new A-League team would be able to play games at the venue, however he said the trust was conscious of existing arrangements.
Nemesis
Guest
I'd guess 8-10k home fans, 1-2k sponsors/promotions/corporate boxes. Remaining seats for away fans. ALeague doesn't get many away fans. For a Derby they'd pull 3k Away fans. Might even get 2k when SydFc, WSW visit.
Mister Football
Roar Guru
Keep 1,000 tickets for away fans? You reckon they're going to be selling out the other 14,000 tickets?? Apart from a Victory game, I seriously doubt they would ever sell 14+k seats. City can't even attract fans into the CBD, and you reckon this mob are going to attract people out to Tarneit?
Mister Football
Roar Guru
Well, you'd hope it's all brought well within the decade. Not to mention, might be nice if they're not relying on a narrow country lane to get in and out. Anyway, whichever way you slice and dice it, doesn't really sound like the Board gave this full consideration.
Nemesis
Guest
There's a railway line that runs next to the proposed WMG stadium location that is closer than the railway line that runs next to AAMI Park or Docklands. Perfect location. The railway line is there. Just need to build a basic station to handle fans for a sporting event. Anyone who has been to Flemington Racecourse will know that the station built to service that Stadium is very basic. Used to be only one rail line into the station, which caused huge crowd problems during Spring Carnival. They were going to build a 2nd line, haven't been to the races recently so don't know if it's been done. Flemington Station probably handles around 80,000 people each day for 4 days of Spring Carnival.
Harry
Guest
"To build a railway station where WMG want to build their stadium would cost something similar to building the stadium at Dandenong" Would it? Have you done a full estimate of costs? Even if it did, a station has a far greater utility value given the number of housing estates near it who need public transport.
Nemesis
Guest
WMG is planning on being the team for the outer west region of Melbourne. They're building a football only 15k stadium. It's likely their fan base will live within the local region & they might keep 1,000 tickets for away fans.
Harry
Guest
They were already planning to build that station in the next decade, as well as two others and electrify the whole line, as per the network development plan and Andrews' campaign promises. What this stadium will do is probably bring the time frame closer.
Brian
Guest
Don't know if its bribery or FFA incomptence that saw WGM beat Team 11 but time will tell.
Brian
Guest
WGM will play 3 years in front of no-one in Geelong and then when on their knees try and convince people to catch the Saturday night train to Hoppers or Caroline Springs.
Mister Football
Roar Guru
Nor I, nor does it sound intuitively correct. A lot of political stars were aligning in favour of building the stadium at Dandenong. To build a railway station where WMG want to build their stadium would cost something similar to building the stadium at Dandenong (and don't forget, it's just V-Line). There is something more to this that we are all missing, and it has something to do with the secrecy pertaining to the bid's financial backers.