The consortium is led by Melbourne businessman, Peter Sidwell.

Sidwell has considerable interests in the racing industry with a training complex, Sutton Grange, near Bendigo.

He has been working on the bid with four partners for almost 12 months.

The group has a working title of Melbourne Heart for the new club, which is expected to target fans in the outer eastern growth corridor in the Casey/Cranbourne area.

Among the partners are two with soccer backgrounds who made the approach to Socceroos Mark Bresciano and Vince Grella to back the consortium.

Bresciano and Grella have written letters of support for the Melbourne Heart syndicate.

FFA CEO Ben Buckley said two very high quality proposals were received for the second Melbourne license.

''We were very impressed with the professionalism and strength of both bids,'' said Buckley.

''The level of interest and quality of the proposals reflect the momentum behind the growth and development of the Hyundai A-League,'' said Buckley.

The other proposal came from a consortium known as Southern Cross FC.

The Southern Cross group was backed by former NSL club South Melbourne.

The biggest challenge facing Southern Cross, which has strong links to the Greek community in Melbourne, was trying reasurre the FFA that they would be representative of a broad audience.

FFA will now accelerates its discussions with the Sidwell-led consortium.

''We continue to be very encouraged with the level of interest in the Hyundai A-League,'' Buckley said.

''The attractiveness of the competition is clearly reflected in the level of interest in the additional licenses and the quality of the bids we are receiving."

Buckley reiterated the FFA’s earlier view that, ultimately, the Hyundai A-League has the capacity to be at least a 12 team competition and possibly 14 teams.

More on the new A-League bids:

www.stgeorge.yourguide.com.au/blogs/don-balon/cahill-wants-a-sea-change/1373074.aspx