Door opening for New Zealand AFL club

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Door opening for New Zealand AFL club

Authored by: Brett Northey
on Wednesday, January 16 2013 @ 04:57 pm ACDT

Hey Tinka,

I understand the sentiment but I'm not sure suggesting "FAR Eastern Bulldogs or the KIWI KANGAROOS" endears international footy to a lot of supporters in Melbourne!

Definitely thought the AFL will need to ramp up its investment in NZ if a viable club was to be based there in anything like 10 to 20 years. But the trajectory of effort/spend over the last 3 years has been pretty good - thinking the Hawthorn committment and HANZ Up and now St Kilda and the ANZAC Day match and the move to have many more tiers of national sides for NZ development and AFL 9s. If that kind of growth in support was replicated for a few more years then it all starts to look more achievable.

Pants' suggestion about the stadium in Auckland at Western Springs is very interesting. It has even hosted an AFL match previously. I'm another person who thinks surely Auckland has to be the go in terms of supporting a permanent club. The suggestion that the AFL should support ensuring a venue in Auckland can host AFL matches is very sensible. Where would the Wellington ANZAC Day match concept be if they had no suitable ground? It wouldn't be happening. Read the following article for some background on AFL exhibition matches in NZ and the efforts to ensure Wellington can host AFL matches now through intervention when the ground was being developed... hopefully the AFL tries to get involved in a similar way: Opinion: New Zealand football – a personal perspective from across the Ditch

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Brett Northey - Co-founder and Chief Editor of WFN

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