Sheedy: AFL needs another Sydney team

Giants coach Kevin Sheedy, right, chats with AFL boss Andrew Demetriou at the announcement of the GWS's new training facility at Sydney Olympic Park. Picture: Cameron Richardson. Source: The Daily Telegraph

THE AFL needs a third team in Sydney.

Think it's crazy? The GWS Giants already have 12,000 members in our second season. That's more than Wests Tigers, Cronulla, Manly and Penrith in the NRL.

Look at what we have already achieved in western Sydney and tell me the AFL couldn't support a third team here.

We have a first-class venue in Skoda Stadium in the Sydney Olympic Park precinct. It's a 25,000-seat stadium that we reckon we can fill on a regular basis within five years.

We have an elite training facility with the Tom Wills Oval being opened this week.

We have a great facility in StarTrack Oval in Canberra.

This didn't exist four years ago. The AFL should be planning now to have a team in southern Sydney, representing the Shire down to the South Coast.

They need to be just as brave as they were with the Giants, when they made a $200 million investment in western Sydney.

Still, the AFL was 15 years late in starting the Giants in western Sydney. We can't make that mistake again.

We're building the foundations of the Giants now. They are strong foundations that will allow the club to be on its feet and firing in five to 10 years.

We've got to make up for lost time. The AFL needs to be thinking now about planning for another Sydney-based team in the next 15 years. Yes, it should be that soon.

If you really want to get AFL in a much stronger position, you really should have a team in the north, west, east and south of Sydney.

Sydney's population is expected to be pushing six million in 2030.

Three teams means two million people for the three clubs. It means all three have the scope to be among the biggest in the AFL. The potential is limitless.

The Giants might be just finding our feet now, but we'll be ready when the third club comes in.

The Swans have been here for 31 years and have 33,000 members as well.

The game is bigger than the Swans and it's bigger than us.

We have to be quicker with our development than the Swans were.

There is no plan B to slow down or scale back the ambitious targets we have set. We already have the foundations in place for the Giants to become a big club.

Even Andrew Demetriou thinks we'll one day become as big as the West Coast Eagles are in Perth.

Many people in Sydney will be worried and shocked by this. We've just arrived and we intend to make western Sydney proud.

Sydney is only going to get bigger and all those people deserve another team that's going to represent them and make them proud, too.

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