And so after years of being a touchy subject, expansion is bringing sexy back to Australian sport.
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The Dolphins have been an instant hit in the NRL, at a time where last year's grand finalists Parramatta have started the season 0-3.
The door ajar, the North Sydney Bears, a Pasifika or Papua New Guinea club based somewhere in Australia, or Perth are all ramping up campaigns to be the league's 18th club.
Now in control of the A-League, the Australian Professional Leagues have pivoted from the Catchment FC introduction of Macarthur in Sydney and Western United in Melbourne, to more organic geographical bases in Canberra and Auckland.
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The APL's aggressive approach includes a plan to add two more teams, to make it a 16-club competition as early as 2025-26.
Suddenly, it puts Wollongong Wolves - a club which was reduced to being a financially-stricken Wollongong Community Football Club in 2008 - at the top of the queue.
Or does it?
Forget about the hoping and wishing and dreaming, I've written enough of those columns about A-League expansion over the years.
What does it take for the Wolves to become the 15th or 16th A-League club?
Firstly, they need a backer and the APL will have a major say on securing that, with a number of international clubs looking to broaden their reach, in a similar way Manchester City have done in Melbourne, New York, Girona and elsewhere.
The City Football Group has fingerprints all over the plans for further A-League expansion, so it's up to the Wolves to work with the APL to secure the key financial ownership support.
Illawarra-based giants like BlueScope and WIN Corporation - half owners of St George Illawarra, a club which has long regarded the Wolves as 'the enemy' - are highly, highly unlikely to be involved.
Which is a fascinating case study when you compare the Wolves to the Sutherland Sharks bid for a National Second Tier team being backed by their NRL neighbours Cronulla.
The Dragons have a $50 million high-performance centre to be built at the Wolves' former home at Brandon Park, they don't need them.
But who knows, an English Premier League club might look at investing in an Australian club just down the road from Sydney for a relative bargain price of A$8-10 million.
Tottenham have already shown their interest in the region with a development program at the University of Wollongong, established in 2018.
Newcastle United have been bought by Saudi Arabian interests, maybe they could follow the City model, though the Visit Saudi tourism sponsorship was this week dumped for the Women's World Cup to be held in Australia this year.
Secondly, the Wolves and Illawarra Stingrays will have to continue their goodwill mission around the region's clubs, as the cold war with Football South Coast hierarchy will be meaningless if they become an A-League club.
Thirdly, they'll need to avoid becoming a political football in the APL's A-League mission and Football Australia's move to create a National Second Tier.
What happens if the Wolves are announced as part of the inaugural second division season for next year, but are summoned to the A-League two years later?
Is it as simple as one of the 32 shortlisted second-tier hopefuls that missed out then replacing them?
What guarantees would be in place if the Wolves were overlooked for the NST on an expectation they'll be included in the A-League?
The big factors with a national second division are having one-tenth of an A-League budget and the prospect of a promotion and relegation system remaining many years away.
The sentiment from within a cautious Wolves camp this week was to methodically work through the process, make their case as irresistible as possible and take whatever comes their way.
What was once a pipe dream is closer than ever and the next two years are the most important in Wolves history, at least since winning National Soccer League titles in 2000 and 2001, to make it a reality.
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