Tasmania look to become 13th A-League team

Tassie Looks For Lucky 13

EXCLUSIVE: Tasmania's A-League bid team are now pinning their hopes on being included in the next round of the competition's expansion as a possible 13th or 14th club.
The apple isle has yet to place an official bid before Football Federation Australia but Tasmania taskforce chairman John McGirr is still targeting inclusion at some stage in the future.

Three bids from Western Sydney and a Canberra bid are in the race for the 12th place in the competition.

"We started a long way behind the other (bids) and I should we are bidding for 'a' licence," McGirr told au.fourfourtwo.com today. "What I can say is that we still have the passion to make this happen in Tasmania."

The Taskforce is in the process of raising the $100,000 needed to finance the business case that it would put before the FFA. Around half of that has been raised and the team will meet shortly with a prominent Tasmanian business in the hope of securing further funding.

The Tasmanian government is a potential source of further support but it would likely need firm light at the end of the tunnel before committing taxpayers cash.

The end of September is likely to be the pivotal moment for Tasmania with McGirr admitting the picture could become a lot clearer by then.

"We will see where we are in terms of the finance and hopefully the FFA may have made the decision on the 12th licence," he said.

"We would hope that that announcement would coincide with their thoughts on further expansion for 13 and 14.

"If we discover that further expansion is planned for a year or a couple of years then that ensures your momentum. If there is no clear indication then it becomes more difficult.

"We never expected this to be easy. Success takes a lot of hard work. As I said, we still have the passion to do this."

McGirr believes the lack of competition from other sports and Tasmania's sense of community and island mentality could ensure a sustainable success.

"The feasibility study we did demonstrated that," he said.

He saw no reason why Tasmania should have a problem in attracting players and revealed that there has already been interest in the coaching job for a team that doesn't yet exist.

McGirr added: "We had an enquiry from a coach with all the credentials in Portugual so that's encouraging at this stage and shows there is awareness of what we are trying to do here."

http://au.fourfourtwo.com/news/111185,tassie-looks-for-lucky-13.aspx

interesting

""We would hope that that announcement would coincide with their thoughts on further expansion for 13 and 14."

this is a key statement IMO, i think what he's saying is that if western sydney get in then the FFA will be in no rush to further expand but if canberra get in the FFA will really want to implement that western sydney team before AFL.

nah... definantly not....
Canberra - 13
South Coast - 14
Tasmania - 15

JohnLovesCanberraUnited wrote:nah... definantly not....
Canberra - 13
South Coast - 14
Tasmania - 15

i agree

I think it will be:

Canberra / WS - 12/13 (2010/11 Season)

Tasmania - 14

Illawarra - 15

south coast will get it before Tassie

^^ But Tasmania has way more money behind it.

thom_canberra wrote:^^ But Tasmania has way more money behind it.

I don't think they have the sheik behind them yet