There has been no shortage of news from the A-League’s newest member in recent weeks.
Western United FC have announced a host of new signings and even shocked the league with the incredibly well-kept secret that homesick Mark Rudan will be the club’s inaugural manager.
Rudan has certainly played his part in trying to stoke what are to this point imaginary derby flames between his new club and fellow Victorian outfits Melbourne Victory and Melbourne City.
Apparently, the Victory versus City derby isn’t a real rivalry and lacks atmosphere! We’re assured that the United versus Victory derbies will be much spicier, which will no doubt raise the ire of the remaining City fans who will be furious at losing the claim to being Victory’s biggest local rival.
A bold statement from a club that hasn’t played a game yet.
Beyond that, I’m surprised no one seems too concerned by the fact that a number of the club’s new signings have come with Rudan from the Phoenix.
Filip Kurto and Max Burgess have both swapped the yellow and black for United’s green and black and one has to wonder how early in the piece they might have been influenced into moving with Rudan to the A-League’s newest clubs.
(Photo by Hagen Hopkins/Getty Images)
This is a competition, after all.
The lack of NPL players being given an opportunity thus far is another slight against the club, given this was another of the promises they made in their initial pitch. There’s still time for Rudan to address this with the rest of his recruiting, so perhaps we will wait and see on that front.
Players and coaches aside, there’s still no proper update on United’s home stadium, and while they will play at least eight of their 13 home games next season in Geelong at the oval-shaped GMHBA Stadium, the venue for the remaining five games remains unconfirmed to this point.
No soil has turned, no public update on how the club is going getting through the maze of red tape that must be involved in a stadium project of this magnitude.
They continue to maintain that, despite this lack of progress, they’re optimistic of a 2021-22 season move-in – a timeline which looks less and less likely with each passing day.
An artist’s impression of the stadium to be built by new A-League expansion team Western United. (Image: Western United FC)
Football Federation Australia doesn’t seem to mind.
In fact, they don’t seem to mind that their newest Melbourne club – which we’re expected to believe was picked in part because Fox Sports wanted an extra team in each of Victoria’s and Sydney’s capital cities – does not feature the word “Melbourne” in their name and will play the majority of their home games in a city which loathes to be included under Melbourne’s ever-expanding umbrella.
Of course, why would the FFA complain?
A-League boss Greg O’Rourke says the club has met all their financial commitments for license payments, which represents a much-needed sugar hit to the tune of $15 million to the FFA bank account.
Apparently he and the FFA were banking on a 2022-23 move-in, which means they never actually believed Western United could achieve their public goal of being in their new, privately funded stadium by 2021-22, or they’re just making it up as they go along.
(Photo by Michael Dodge/Getty Images)
Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m an avid believer that football clubs in Australia need to invest much more strongly in their stadia and infrastructure.
The fact that so many of our top-flight clubs need to lease venues for matches and – in some cases – don’t even own their training grounds is a poor reflection on the state of the game.
Apart from being valuable assets, these investments can help clubs eventually turn a profit.
While I remain positive about an A-League club finally getting its own stadium, I cringe when I think about the potential damage already being done by them having to play the part of a travelling circus in their crucial, formative years.
Unless Western United are an instant on-field success, which they may be under the guidance of Rudan, it’s hard to see enough fans getting on board to tide the club over until they’re in a shiny new stadium.
Tyke
Roar Rookie
Yes I am denying it mate, Campbelltown is nowhere near Parramatta, Penrith, Blacktown etc. You obviously don’t live in Sydney, but anyone can look at a map.
rolly
Guest
Campbeltown is in western suburbs of Sydney the home ground is in Campbeltown ,Campbeltown stadium hardly call it a stadium ,its in wanderers backyard you can"t deny that
Mister Football
Roar Guru
The land package the council granted currently sits a few km beyond the present limits of Tarneit's built up area, i.e. it's still semi-rural and serviced by a single country lane, quite literally. The council's public statement in relation to the granting of the land is the concept of "value capture", i.e. the consortium which receives the land gets to profit from building a housing estates and commercial buildings around the stadium on the basis that they actually build the stadium. The actual club will not own any of this. So the consortium get to defray the cost of the stadium from the profits of developing the land around it, and the council gains from having a section of rural land fully developed at no cost to them. Given property values have plummeted in Melbourne, and outer Tarneit will be as hard hit as anywhere else, you'd think there must be some effect on the initial assumptions they used to justify the investment.
Sydneysideliner
Roar Rookie
I admit I don't know much of the finer details about the site and the overall project. The architect images have a lot of residential units and town centre commercial stuff around the stadium, is that happening at the same time? Because that will complicate the timely delivery of things. It's one thing to build a stadium in the sticks and pay for game-day services, it's something else to build a brand new town centre and pay for trunk utilities, commuter-level transport etc, as well as quickly developing a stadium.
Sydneysideliner
Roar Rookie
Social media following is a pretty shaky measurement to use in the early days, especially when it's barely established a single, official blue-tick account. Journalists, organisations, branded content, bots, the longer you exist, the more you attract a bigger share of these 'non-fan' categories. Also City has one of the highest followings, probably largely on the basis of being part of the CFG
Mister Football
Roar Guru
Very good points, and all well made. The other thing to add, especially from the council's perspective is that they have granted the land for free, presumably on the basis that the consortium covers all infrastructure costs within the land granted. As you rightly intimate, one would expect a bit of horse trading to occur about a long list of infrastructure needs in the wider environs of the land granted.
Sydneysideliner
Roar Rookie
Knowing town planning, there will be ongoing disagreements about the infrastructure contributions the developers owe the local council and State agencies too. This is a private application with only in-principle support by the local council; there is no political commitment to help fund its delivery, unlike Parramatta. So the council's and State agencies' starting point will be full cost to the developer and no cost to the community. Which will lead to lengthy negotiations over what upgrades are reasonably linked to the stadium, what should be payable by the developer, whether developer costs are reasonable for the government-led infrastructure (with frequent accusations of "gold-plating"). This can take months or even years, which is why the original target was always overly ambitious.
anon
Roar Pro
It's not happening. Like I said, the people running the A-League are naive and incompetent if they think this has any chance of being built. Stadium cost would conservatively have to be $150 million plus surrounding infrastructure. There's an underutilised rectangular stadium 25km away in Melbourne. Considering they'll only have a few thousand people turn up, then surely they can find some suburban soccer grounds to play on.
Tyke
Roar Rookie
Mate, MacArthur isn’t in wanderers back yard, if you live in Sydney you should know better.
Mister Football
Roar Guru
Latest news on the Tarneit stadium, this is from the local media (refers to local infrastructure funding from the Victorian state budget): There is also no provision for infrastructure for the new A-League soccer stadium at Tarneit, leaving locals scratching their heads as to how they will access the facility once it is complete.
chris
Guest
So many "sokkah" channels to pick from on Fox. Is it 8? 9? Losing a few here or there wont make much difference. How are those re-runs on the AFL channel going for you?
AR
Guest
I still don’t understand any of the garbled nonsense you’ve written about the company car, the holiday operator, or 99 year leases... Dockland Stadium, as a wholly-owned asset, makes the AFL millions each year in clean net operating profit. Period. It’s also a nifty bit of security for a loan or two. How anyone could suggest otherwise is just deluded or bitter or both.
anon
Roar Pro
They'll develop the land, but the stadium will be pushed back and pushed back.
anon
Roar Pro
Foxtel has pledged to eliminate non-marquee sports. We'll find out what Foxtel consider non-marquee. They've already dumped their club soccer channels.
SweatyProp
Roar Rookie
At the rate Foxtel is shedding programming the FFA or hopefully the A-League will want to have great clarity on how they generate replacement revenue from alternatives to the dying cable platform. The days of free-to-air TV coughing up the big bucks is long gone. Production costs to present all A-League games every round are substantial. Given the juvenile management approaches of the FFA and some of the A-League clubs a smart media strategy is looking like a stretch. Clubs and their owners should be very wary of where the revenue is going to come from.
Maximus INsight
Guest
Interestingly, your article had exactly the same number of comments as this one....until I wrote this comment of course
Brainstrust
Roar Rookie
Its an analogy and if you could understand it Perth stadium is the company car in the analogy. MV is noted as a very tight club in the A-league, if you were lucky you would have Sydney Fc as a tenant, but MV only play at Docklands on cheap deals. The Englsh FA would make a lot of money on Wembley if it could force four EPL clubs into the joint on high rent deals. Which is how the AFL got four sucker clubs to pay off most of Docklands for them.. If you were a holiday operator you sell 4 blokes a full price holiday and then you save money by having all 4 blokes sleeping in the same bed on a holiday it would make heaps of money.The EPL clubs all want their own , AFL is far superior in terms of conning its clubs to pay top dollar to share the same bed and . There was a lot of development around Docklands just before the AFL then suddenly wanted to take over. It would be interesting to know what sort of deals were being signed off around that forced the AFL to dip into its own pockets. Maybe they were doing stuff like selling off cheap 99 year pre paid leases which is what happens when your originally to scared to run the joint yourselves and let some group do it for you.
chris
Guest
Jordan in Australia, the marquee sports are the sports we are number 1 at, or close to it. AFL (although Ireland would dispute this) and league come to mind. Where there is global competition, football and to a lesser extent Union, aren't "marquee" in Foxtels lingo. They need to replace the word "marquee" with "provincial" or "backyard". Look at the hysteria around State of Origin. Reports every day about who will be selected, who is vying for what position. Dedicated media slavishly reporting on every detail, weeks and months outfrom the event. And for what exactly? A concocted game between the same old 2 teams, year in year out.
Mister Football
Roar Guru
Of course everything you are saying is correct. Tarneit was chosen because the Victory didn't want SE melbourne there. The new Chair is a Melburnian.
Brian
Guest
The council is giving away the land for free just as Casey were willing to do. the only difference was that as there are already people in Dandenong they wanted the govt to build the stadium. WMG on the other hand are going to build real estate with the ground and therefore fund the stadium via "value capture". In other words instead of building roads and parkland they made it work by building the stadium to get the mcmansion permits.