Short notice summary of another South for A-League bid

For sale? Dumb cunts same dumb questions
Virgins? Listen, all virgins are liars honey

- Manic Street Preachers, Yes 

Tonight I was going to finish writing a post just to break up the quietude - a post that would have been of interest almost only to myself - but thankfully one can always depend on the club to deliver.

From right to left: Board members Grabrielle Giuliano and Bill Papastregiadis,
next to Luisa Chen, the currently mysterious 'investor'.
Photo by Tim Caraffa, as stolen by us from the Herald Sun wensite

In this case it's another A-League bid, presently located in an article behind the Herald Sun's online paywall, or in other places if you can be bothered doing the runaround to look for them. Never mind, I managed to have a look at it before the paywall kicked in for whatever reason.

This time it was Bill Papastergiadis who was the public face of the bid as opposed to president Leo Athanasakis or anyone else who's done this work in the past. Papastergiadis, fellow board member Gabrielle Giuliano, former federal sports minister Andrew Thomson and 'bid investor' - whatever that means - Luisa Chen are members of the 'advisory committee' apparently behind the bid. The bid claims it wants to do the following:

• Play in blue and white, but probably use the red vee heritage strip for away matches,
• Play all matches out of Lakeside except for derbies.
• Also apply for a W-League team, as well as maintain our NPL side.
• Be based out of Lakeside in terms of the headquarters.

The bid also claims

• It has the licensc fee and financial backing required.
• It also claims that it can break even at Lakeside with just attendances of just 1500.

The full bid will be launched or put forward to FFA in a month's time. At that time I would hope for more detail about financial backers, the improvements (if needed) for Lakeside Stadium ('There are no immediate plans to expand Lakeside Stadium’s capacity') what the club structure would be (would there part privatisation?) and everything else that members deserve to know. After all, should we actually somehow be given the green light by FFA, the club would have to get approval from its members, right?

It's short notice, so there hasn't been the chance to wade through a lot of the usual responses to a South A-League notice, but one thing that has cropped up is the integrity of the club and the fears that it may not be South Melbourne as a member owned entity. Until we actually get more information - on finances, on logistics, on everything - there's no point in speculating. When's that AGM coming by the way?

In its own way, this news is actually kind of reassuring on two fronts. First, that the club is still trying to aim high. Second, that in amid the 'scramble for Africa' style theatrics for what seems to be the apparently imminent A-League expansion, we've made our ambitions known after sitting quietly through talk to various degrees of,

• second Brisbane (probably Strikers)
• second Adelaide 
• second Perth
• third Sydney (Shire team)
• Tasmania (backed by former South and Victory cohorts Harry Stamoulis and Robert Belteky)
• Geelong
• Canberra
• Wollongong

Much of this discussion is admittedly predicated on South being considered an actual chance by anyone not at South and with actual influence in the places which count. For those who think or feel that there is no chance, there is no need to discuss pretty much anything - just sit back and watch us reach for the sky and fail again. 

On a lighter note, this is the best comment about A-League expansion I've seen for some time.

@safrossydney TBH play CCMvWP at all potential expansion locations & ask they get 10K to keep metrics consistent

— Paulo Miguel (@paulmiguel6) November 14, 2016

About as transparent and equitable as a bidding process can get in this country.