UPDATED |
Sydney FC have committed to playing games at Jubilee Oval, Kogarah while Allianz Stadium undergoes renovations from next season.
The Sky Blues will remain based at Moore Park after securing a deal to play six of their 13 home games at the Sydney Cricket Ground from the 2018-19 A-League season.
But Sydney FC will split their remaining seven home matches between Kogarah and Leichhardt Oval with the two venues located within their two biggest catchment regions for members. The exact split of the remaining games will be determined by scheduling and availability of the grounds.
The news comes after Southern Expansion, a rival A-League bid hoping for inclusion in the 2019-20 season, announced last month they had signed memorandums of understanding to play matches at Jubilee Oval as well as Shark Park at Woolooware and Wollongong’s WIN Stadium.
Sydney FC chief executive Danny Townsend told the Leader the club had also looked into playing at Shark Park and WIN Stadium but had settled on what he called their “heartland” areas. And, regardless of Southern Expansion’s potential existence, Sydney FC would be committed to Kogarah for the three years of Allianz Stadium’s rebuild.
“I think for us at our point of our business cycle we’re obviously going to be displaced for three years and felt it was a great opportunity to take Sydney FC back out into our heartland,” he said.
“Around 32 per cent of our fans come from St George and the Sutherland Shire areas and we want to accommodate them with A-League content.
“It will depend on the FFA and what they’ll allow in terms of scheduling. So we won’t know until May when the interim A-League draw comes out but our intention is that Kogarah will be one of our homes for the next three years.
“We’ve been investing in the St George area for 13 years. It’s difficult to take content away from our home ground at Allianz but we’ve seen this as a positive for change. It has freed us up from our hiring agreement with the Trust and allows us to take some games into our heartland.”
Townsend denied the move to Kogarah was the club’s way of marking their territory before Southern Expansion’s potential launch, pointing to their work done in the area over more than a decade.
“We marked our territory 13 years ago and we’ve been investing in the region ever since,” he said.
“We have significant ties to St George and Sutherland Shire football associations and Football South Coast and we’ve continued to ramp up community involvement which has been happening long before any talk of other potential clubs. And our conversations with Georges River Council predated any of that.
“We’ve been very clear on our views of expansion. We’re a fan of sensible expansion, not cannibalising the fan bases of existing franchises. And we’ve been very clear on our commitment to the south of Sydney.”
