investigation
Leaders and experts’ growing calls for a third AFL club to be based in Western Australia as expansion looms

WA is ready for a third AFL team to balance out the league should Tasmania be given the green light to join the competition, according to a growing chorus of prominent leaders and experts. With a Tasmanian team poised to be awarded a 19th AFL license over the coming months, all eyes are on where Australia’s biggest sporting competition will turn to for a prospective 20th franchise to help create an even set of numbers for fixturing. The answer could lie up and down the coast either side of WA footy’s current home at Optus Stadium, where powerbrokers are pressing the case for a third WA club to disrupt the two-team town model dominated by West Coast and Fremantle for almost three decades. City of Joondalup mayor Albert Jacob has spruiked Perth’s northern suburbs as a new franchise’s “obvious home”, while Bunbury mayor Jaysen Miguel argues the South West would be the perfect spot to host another team. Mr Jacob said the population base in the wider Joondalup area made it the clear option, should a third team become a reality. “The City of Joondalup by itself is 160,000, but we are not just talking the City of Joondalup – we are the CBD and Arena Joondalup is the centre of sport – but the City of Wanneroo is already 210,000,” he said. “So straight off the bat you are talking 370,000 people. Plus the northern half of Stirling. “And if you go out to Swan and Ellenbrook and those other areas, pretty quickly you start to get up to half a million people sitting in this catchment. “It works as a northern identity, not just a Joondalup identity, and in this region, more than 40 per cent of the people were born overseas. The Federal Government has said we need a migration push and the State Government is saying the same thing and this is where a lot of them are going to move. “They don’t have those traditional allegiances, particularly to the Eagles but also to the Dockers. This is the catchment, it’s the obvious choice.” Andrew Williams, director of education at UWA business school, agreed that the north metro region was WA’s best hope for a third club. “It’s a growth area and the public transport out there is going to help expansion,” he said. “Perth is renowned as having an incredibly big footprint. For an urban city of two million, how far it stretches... in those northern suburbs the population increases will be pretty significant over the next generation.” Mr Williams said the most significant hurdle would be prising WA footy fans away from their existing allegiances in either blue-and-gold or purple. “Technically speaking, three teams in a two million town is viable. But there is always the problem that it won’t be two million divided by three,” he said. “You have already got West Coast with 35 years in the competition, Freo with 27 years, so people have already chosen their tribe. “It would be be really hard to force your way in there so they would very much be a vulnerable younger cousin for a while. “In terms of sponsorship, I don’t they they would have a problem. My issue is purely and simply is with the potential supporter base. And you would have the same problem in SA.” Mr Miguel said the 200,000-strong population of the greater South West area, bolstered by an upcoming $13.6 million upgrade of Bunbury’s footy centre at Hands Oval, would help press the region’s case. The oval, which is also used as the South Bunbury Football Club home ground, has hosted two AFL pre-season matches, five WA Football League games, two Perth Glory A-League pre-season meets and three domestic one-day cricket clashes. “The idea was that we are in a position to showcase games, whether they are WAFL games or (AFL) pre-season games,” he said. “There was every possibility we could have been a hub during AFL COVID. The ground is top class, but the facilities themselves are lacking behind.” There have already been feasibility studies about having a South-West side in the WAFL. “There are 85,000 people down here. The Bunbury and South West region have a history of producing some pretty good AFL players,” he said. “There has been a lot of work done previously about grass roots footy and cricket. The AFL keeps talking about grass roots, so why don’t they actually looking at setting up some of their bases in grass roots areas? “We have all of that. We are a city, but we still have a country feel and that’s what makes us what we are. And why we have been so successful and why we have been able to produce so many talented athletes in all codes.” Mr Miguel said he was so keen on the idea, he had already picked out a name for the team — the South West Pelicans. I go for the New Orleans Pelicans over in the US in the NBA. The South-West Pelicans has a nice feel to it,” he said. Sports Minister and Mandurah MLA David Templeman has long been an advocate of his city hosting a third WA-based AFL team if the idea went ahead. “In the future, if a third team becomes viable, it’s only natural it would be in the Binjareb region in Mandurah,” he told the West. However, West Australian Football Commission chairman Wayne Martin cast doubt over the viability of a third AFL club in the west. “Things are going pretty well in WA. Those two clubs (West Coast and Fremantle) between them would have over a million supporters between them, community football is strong, the WAFL is coming off this year the best competition for a long, long time. “The WAFL clubs are all pretty much in the black, so if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Former WAFC and West Coast chairman Murray McHenry offered a firm “no” when asked if WA could support a third AFL team. “We have a unique structure in WA, with the commission owning both of the licences. The income flow comes into them. So you would have to look at if a third team was to come in, would it be owned by the commission and part of the same structure? But more importantly, is that going to bring down the other two clubs?” he said. “Is the end result going to be no less, better or less? My view is that it will be less because of the costs of running it.” McHenry said the fact the Dockers will pay the full royalty to the WAFC this year of $1.9m for the first time was proof WA was not ready for a third seat at the AFL table. “Until that is sustainable and they can pay that base amount every year, I doubt we have the ability here to fund a third side,” he said. “And it shouldn’t be that the AFL is trying to force a third licence here. If they were forcing it and the football commission didn’t want it, they (the AFL) may say ‘well we will sell it to private enterprise’. I don’t think that would go well. “The State now owns the stadium, football doesn’t own it anymore. They would see content (with a third team), that is what their job is. “There would be enough people facilitating it, it would come down to whether they could get the structure right. “And then there is the damage it would do to the WAFL. It’s taken a lot of tinkering to get the WAFL balanced as best you can, having two AFL sides here. “There is never the perfect solution to that. We have had solutions and we have had to massage that on a continuous basis.”

investigation
Leaders and experts’ growing calls for a third AFL club to be based in Western Australia as expansion looms

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investigationLeaders and experts’ growing calls for a third AFL club to be based in Western Australia as expansion looms

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investigation
Leaders and experts’ growing calls for a third AFL club to be based in Western Australia as expansion looms