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Opinion

What Melbourne City’s move could mean for expansion

Roar Guru
16th December, 2020
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Roar Guru
16th December, 2020
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It has just been announced that Melbourne City are moving to a new base in southeast Melbourne where they hope to develop a clear geographic identity for themselves similar to the Western Sydney Wanderers, Western United and Macarthur FC.

This move has been in the works for 18 months in partnership with the Team 11 consortium, who failed to gain a licence in the last round of expansion.

Founded in 2009 as Melbourne Heart, before being taken over and rebranded by City Football Group in 2014, this move to the southeast adds another layer of history to the club’s identity. It also raises the question of whether they will once again change their name, in order to connect with local fans.

In all likelihood, they probably will, especially if they move to a new stadium in Dandenong full time. If they want to “own the geography” then they need to really commit to being part of the area permanently, not just training there. A new stadium then looks like a logical endgame for them to head towards, possibly with a name change as well.

AAMI Park, Melbourne

City could potentially move from current home AAMI Park (Photo by: Andrew Woodley/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

The new order this move will create will neatly divide Melbourne into three zones, with Melbourne Victory in the north and the CBD, Western United on the west side of Port Phillip Bay down the Bellarine Peninsula, and City on the east side of Port Phillip Bay down the Mornington Peninsula.

As Chris Nikou said at the time, “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.”

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But with the Team 11 bid no more, that’s a very big gap that they have left in the field of expansion contenders as they were a very strong bid. So, where this this now leave the others?

South Melbourne were one of the four finalists in the last round of expansion, but they were also claiming that they could represent southeast Melbourne, which Melbourne City have now claimed as their territory. Letting in South Melbourne in the east would be like admitting Melbourne Knights in the west. It gets a bit congested.

In Sydney, the Southern Expansion group have packed up and left and the only known bid in the works seems to be a bid in Liverpool being driven by Craig Johnston, linked to its namesake in England.

There was a Liverpool bid seven years ago along similar lines, but it never really gained much traction among the public at the time. In any case, there are now two teams in western Sydney and adding a third might be a bit too much. Although they would be sure to have strong financial backing.

In Brisbane, there’s plenty of talk about a second team, but it always comes back to the matters of where they would play, who they would represent and how many people would support them. It’s tricky.

Proponents say that Brisbane is big enough to support two teams, but any second team playing at Lang Park will risk being another Melbourne City, who by the way have just relocated. Ballymore is getting a permanent downgrade, Queensland Performing Arts Centre is too big and while Dolphin is a good size, there’s no actual bid for a team here and nobody knows how many fans would support them, anyway.

FFA Cup action

Dolphin Stadium during an FFA Cup clash. (AAP Image/Dave Hunt)

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The Strikers want to redevelop Perry Park, but they could also split the fan base with Roar and just end up creating two small teams. Then finally, the Western Corridor bid was just a way to help support the case for the NRL bid, on the recommendation of David Gallop.

The Fremantle bid seem to have gone silent, which counts out Perth and a second team in Adelaide would be eclipsed by Adelaide United. Both are unlikely.

Like Brisbane, a second team in New Zealand based in Auckland often gets thrown up too; but with more Australian teams still being added and much talk of implementing rules to increase playing time for young Australians, more of them are likely to remain in Australia. This would then leave the two New Zealand sides to compete for them and the advantage that Wellington had last season might vanish. The two teams could just end up cannibalising the New Zealand market.

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With the major cities all looking a bit iffy, that leads us to look at regional locations instead.

Canberra would seem the clear frontrunner and have the backing of Qatar Sports Investments who also own Paris Saint Germain. No doubt Canberra would be financially stable.

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The bid group from Tasmania are still interested and are now pushing for York Park to be made convertible to a rectangular format with temporary seats on the pitch. Along with a proposed rectangular stadium in Hobart, this will give them two rectangular grounds.

Wollongong have the backing of 91-year-old billionaire Bruce Gordon, but they would need to have a long-term plan that lasts beyond him. Other than that, they have a very strong bid.

As for Queensland, Cairns FC and North Queensland United both withdrew from the NPL Queensland due to being unable to afford to remain in the competition, so they’d be outsiders.

In the southeast, however, you have Gold Coast United and the Sunshine Coast.

The bid group from the Sunshine Coast seem to have gone, but plans to expand the seating capacity at the stadium to over 11,500 and overall capacity to more than 16,500 would make it a good venue. However, the Gold Coast is the only one between them to actually now have backing.

Robina Stadium is too big, but they have proposed building a smaller stadium on the Gold Coast for the team, although they would still have to compete for fans with the AFL and NRL, unlike the Sunshine Coast.

Overall, the end of the firm favourite Team 11 bid has left an additional slot for another bid to move into. But trying to find new places to expand to hasn’t got much easier. Especially with the need for a new TV deal fast approaching.

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What can be said, however, is that some of the regional bids might not be as bad as they once seemed. As long as they can demonstrate that they have good financial backing, the bids from Canberra, Wollongong, Tasmania and the Gold Coast could all be good additions to the league.

Or maybe the next two places will just go to South Melbourne and Liverpool.

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