FFA set to revive Western Sydney idea as Nick Tana and Remo Nogarotto lined up as backers

[size=3] By Simon Hill
FOX SPORTS
December 21, 2011 12:01AM[/size]


Football Federation Australia's long-held dream of an A-League club in the west of Sydney may be back on the agenda.

Former Perth Glory owner Nick Tana and ex-Soccer Australia chairman Remo Nogarotto are being lined up for a sensational return to football as the front men for a new Western Sydney franchise.

Fox Sports understands that Tana, who bankrolled Glory into the old National Soccer League (NSL) in 1996, and subsequently won two national titles, has been approached by the FFA to be one of the main backers of the new club, with Nogarotto as his right-hand man.

Nogarotto last worked in football in Australia as a consultant for the former owner of the Newcastle Jets, Con Constantine, and currently divides his time between Australia and Italy as CEO of strategist company Crosby Textor.

The sticking point - as is normally the case with football franchises in Australia - is where the rest of the money will come from.

Tana is understood to be willing to be a significant investor, but others will be required.

The FFA will hope the involvement of Tana in particular (given his record of success in the west) will attract other would-be investors, and turn the dream of a club in the game's oft-quoted "heartland" into reality.

The news that the pair are on the brink of a return to the game represents a remarkable thawing in relations between the two and the sport's governing body.

Tana, the former owner of fast food chains Chicken Treat and Red Rooster, has been out of the game since relinquishing his role with Glory in March 2006.

His relationship with FFA in those days could best be described as "frosty" after disagreements as to how clubs would make money following the switch from NSL to A-League.

However, he remains passionate about the game, and his company, Allia Holdings, continues to run nib Stadium, where Glory play their home games.

Nogarotto was the last chairman of Soccer Australia before the old board was dissolved, and re-constituted as Football Federation Australia, under the recommendations of the Crawford Report.

Being a supporter of reform, he was not pleased to be forcibly removed from his post - tarnished, as he saw it, by those who had gone before him.

Western Sydney has long been the apple of FFA’s eye, and even though chairman Frank Lowy recently ruled out further expansion of the A-League until 2015 at the earliest, that time frame could be revisited if the finances can be found.

Money remains the key factor. After the failure of the Western Sydney Rovers bid - led by Ian Rowden and Charlie Yankos - FFA knows it cannot afford another in the nation's biggest city.

It’s not the first time Nogarotto and Tana have shown an interest in Western Sydney. Back in 2004, both sat on an advisory panel for the-then Soccer New South Wales, as they launched a bid for the sole Sydney franchise in the new A-League.

That bid - put together under the chairmanship of Tom Doumanis - failed.

This new partnership may just stand a better chance of success…if they can find the money men to go along with the project.

So this is what they were talking about on FC tonight.

I've heard from a good source that Western Sydney will be the next team in the A-League