South Melbourne bid chairman Bill Papastergiadis said the club’s rich NSL history and existing infrastructure were keys.

“South Melbourne is arguably Australia’s most successful football club. We are ready now,” he said.

“What sets South Melbourne apart from most bids is that it has an exclusive 40-year lease, on excellent terms, of the boutique state of the art Lakeside Stadium and it’s the only one from Victoria which boasts such a boutique football ground.

“The facilities also include South Melbourne’s own social club (300-seater) futsal centre, club museum and administrative offices.

“With over 9000 members and arguably the best public transport infrastructure to service the stadium, we’re best placed to serve the growing population of Melbourne.

“Add the fact that our men’s and women’s junior teams have won practically all the titles in the NPL, we are ‘fit and prepared’.”

Team 11 project officer Matt Windley said the south-east bid was “more than a football bid”.

“There’s 1.5 million people in the south-east that don’t have a professional club training and playing here,” Windley said.

“A stadium in Dandenong would be a community hub with greater usage than just football and the Casey Fields academy will provide a pathway to professionalism that has never existed here.

“So many of our local clubs — at all levels — are incredibly supportive.

“The sport has the ability to unite what is one of the most multicultural regions in the country like nothing else can.”

“Firstly, football is about competition and the Sydney Southern region and the South Coast are an extremely important stakeholder and partner,” Craig Foster said speaking to FourFourTwo.“
A third metropolitan and regional club delivers six more derbies a year.
Where is all of our best crowds, engagement, excitement and atmosphere coming from the game right now? It is in our derbies.

So, in fact what would happened is that everyone would benefit including Sydney FC.“

Secondly instead of saying who wants to bid for a club, we’d be better off asking where are the key markets with massive participation, huge population base, massive business and corporate support that are currently underserviced, where the potential for massive growth and uplift in crowds and infrastructure is huge?“
One of them is the southern Sydney region. The game is not doing a good enough job in one of our key participant areas and one of the biggest population centres in all of our country in the biggest city.”

The executive of the NSW PCYC, Chris Gardiner, is also part of the bid while the licence is being financially guaranteed by property giant the JiaYuan Group from Zhejiang, China with $12 million guaranteed in capital.

With those kinds of finances and plans for a purpose-built football stadium in the region, Foster says the Southern Expansion bid should lift the bar when it comes to the FFA’s final criteria.

Victorian football club South Melbourne believe that a story that has surfaced today on SBS is part of a campaign to “throw shade” at the club with the intent to hijack its bid to enter the A-League.

Two days before the A-League aspirant clubs submit their bid vying over the two upcoming A-League licences, SBS uploaded a news article on their website “targeting Hellas” according to South Melbourne’s head of Legal and Public Relations and the chairman of their A-League bid committee, Bill Papastergiadis.

In the headline and the introduction of the published story, it is stressed that South Melbourne denies any connection with a soccer agent accused of illicit behaviour.“
The person in question is involved with dozens of soccer clubs promoting junior players overseas”, Mr Papastergiadis told Neos Kosmos adding that said person bears no relation to South Melbourne and its A-League bid.“

We have no connection to the person that has been accused of such misconduct. In Melbourne they attended our press conference with Roberto Carlos because the Brazilian national had employed them as their translator.”This was not the only event the accused was present, however, “He has also attended another A-League aspirant club’s event where the Victorian Premier was present,”

Mr Papastergiadis added making it clear that South Melbourne is being “shaded” because it’s a “strong” candidate.“How do you explain that every other news outlet ignored the allegations?” he stressed explaining that even in the SBS piece there is no mention of South Melbourne or any of its members being involved in any way with the accused’s alleged misconduct.