A high-profile consortium behind an A-League expansion bid, which includes the Illawarra region, believes it will be a ‘no-brainer’ for Football Federation Australia to accept them into the competition.
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The group, working under the name Southern Expansion, detailed plans to pursue spots in the A-League, W-League and National Youth League at a media conference in Sydney on Monday.
Led by former SBS broadcaster Les Murray, who is the chairman of the bid’s Steering Group, the consortium will be backed by Chinese conglomerate the JiaYuan Group.
It will work alongside associations in Sutherland, St George and Illawarra's Football South Coast, with a focus on grassroots. While the FFA has put A-League expansion plans on the back-burner until at least the 2018-19 season, Murray said the group had notified the governing body that they planned to apply for a licence ‘whenever the league is ready’.
He added the Southern group were ‘ready to go now’ and expressed confidence in the quality of the bid.
“The question is not if whether we will come in, the question is when we will come in or when they decide to expand,” he said.
“I don’t there will be a better applicant than us.
“I don’t want to compare us to other suitors but it is pretty much a no-brainer to have this club that I would actually call a ‘super club’, in the A-League.”
The JiaYuan Group have already committed a $12 million bank guarantee for the bid and have plans to build a training complex as well as their own boutique stadium in the not too distant future. Before the construction of the stadium, the club would share matches between WIN Stadium, Shark Park (Sutherland) and Kogarah Oval (St George).
Murray said the group would work closely with the associations and their respective communities to ensure all three were provided similar opportunities.
"We want the three regions to be equal partners in this project," Murray said.
"We don't want to focus one or the other or two of the three.
"They all have great virtues in terms of communities and regions which have history and diversity.
"We want to harness all of them in every way that we can."
Former Socceroo Craig Foster is the group's Head of Football while ex NSW PCYC boss Chris Gardiner will be chief executive.
Foster detailed the group’s focus on grassroots.
“Southern will not sit atop of grassroots, but alongside, and our shared vision is to become the strongest football region in the country in every aspect, administration, infrastructure, development and professional success,” he said.
“Parents will be pleased to know that in this club, females and males are equal, and our Academy will include both girls and boys from the beginning at no cost to the players and the region’s juniors will have a direct pathway to their own A-League and W-League teams.”
The bid has no link to the Wollongong Wolves, who have their own aspirations to join the A-League as a stand alone team.
The Wolves were the region’s last national league team until the NSL collapsed in 2004 and have been plying their trade in the NSW National Premier League competition since.
