When second NSW team was miles off

A SECOND AFL team in Sydney was “pie in the sky stuff at the moment,” Swans coach Rodney Eade said yesterday.

“Really we’ve got to prove that we can be solvent and stand on our own two feet in every way for four or five years so we’ve got a solid base in Sydney as far as membership, corporate and performance on field,” Eade said. “That’s so if and when a second team comes, they’ve got a real good chance of surviving as well. It would be no good them (a second team) coming and struggling all of a sudden. One would be eating another.”

Eade’s comments came amid intense speculation this week that Jamie Packer was prepared to bankroll a second AFL team in Sydney if his family’s Nine Network won the free-to-air television broadcast rights from the AFL.

Nine and the Seven Network are engaged in a bidding duel for last refusal on the rights when Seven’s current agreement expires at the end of the 2001 season.

At the urging of the 16 clubs, the AFL commission last Tuesday decided to quarantine the television rights from the tendering to build the new $350 million Victoria Stadium at Docklands. But the AFL hopes to announce by the end of next week which network has won the right of making the last bid which is expected to reap Australian football around $50 million.

AFL chief executive officer Wayne Jackson has long embraced the idea of a second AFL team playing out of Sydney at the Homebush Stadium.

But the AFL commissioners are opposed to the principle of private ownership having had their fingers burnt in the early experience of the Swans and Brisbane.

Eade said the Swans were not aiming to take by storm rugby league’s foothold or support in Sydney.

“Rugby league people are starting to realise we’re there as a Sydney team and we hope that Sydney embraces us as one of their teams. So they (Sydney sports fans) support rugby league, AFL and soccer.”

Originally appeared in The Australian, 23/08/1997