The expansion hopefuls have released a statement, insisting that Sunday’s sell-out crowd at Jubilee Oval - one of the three venues they plan to call home - would be a foretaste of what to expect were they granted an A-League license.
“This is exactly what we’ve said would happen, bringing the A-League to local Southern stadia,” crowed Southern CEO Chris Gardiner.
“As we all know, the Southern region beats every other region in Australia for football fanaticism.
“Over 40,000 football participants not yet connected to the A-League or a club, they’re hungry for games at their local stadia with their own team.
“Sydney FC has validated our multi-stadia approach of bringing games into communities. We know that we will fill Jubilee, fill Shark Park and fill WIN Stadium each with their own monthly games - just as the Dragons have done this year in the NRL.”
Southern chairman Morris Iemma added fuel to the fire, declaring: “Our competitive push has seen Sydney FC jump on board, at least until they return to Moore Park as they plan.”
Having previously accused the China-backed bid of seeking to cannibalise a region where it claims 30 per cent of its fan base resides, an incredulous Townsend lampooned Southern’s bid to “dine out” on Sydney’s success.
“They’ve been pretty much kicked into touch on social media over what they’ve said and it’s not a very smart way to go about things,” he said.
“The sea of Sky Blue in the crowd yesterday sent out a pretty strong message.
“Southern Expansion have previously said that Sydney FC aren’t connected with the St George area, and that people in the region don’t identify with us, well it must’ve been pretty embarrassing for them to see 20,000 of our fans in the stands.”
Gardiner claims that Sydney can legitimately claim 21 per cent of their members across St George and Sutherland Shire, and that the South West Sydney A-League bid out of Campbelltown poses “more of a threat” to Western Sydney Wanderers than they do to Sydney FC.
But Townsend disputed that conclusion.
“We are the only ones with our membership data and they are putting out false information,” he insisted.
“We know the postcodes of our members and over 30 per cent of them are from southern Sydney. I don’t know how many more times I need to say that.”
Townsend believes expansion, with six bidders chasing two spots for 2019-2020, should come from “areas not currently serviced by the A-League.”
“The number of kids coming through our Academy system from the St George, Sutherland and the South Coast demonstrates a very clear pathway to professional football,” he said.
“You look at the population growth over the next five or 10 years and it’s very clear where there needs to be a new team in Sydney, and that’s in the south west.
“The St George area is not a growing community but It’s a great community for football and that’s why we’ve had a lot of success in 14 years of promoting the game in there.
“The reason we chose to play in Kogarah was that we knew we would be taking the game to our heartland.”
The stadium is one of three Sydney will use in the three years it will take to rebuild Allianz Stadium, and has intensified the territorial arm wrestle with Southern Expansion with the two potentially sharing the same venue.
“It’s madness and doesn’t make any sense. It flies in the face of what everything expansion is meant to be about. It’s laughable really,” added Townsend.
“We’d like to see the next decision on expansion from FFA be a commonsense one.
“We should be looking at areas where we can grow game.”
But Gardiner sees it differently, contending: “I’ve seen the data now and there are more Wanderers members impacted by the South West Sydney bid then there are Sydney FC members impacted by our bid. That’s the FFA’s own data.
“Of all the bids in Sydney and Melbourne, we’re the one with the least impact on an existing A-League club.
“In the St George area, for example, after 12 years and three premierships, the number of Sydney FC members in that area - the heartland that they will not give up - is only 1000.”
