the pink poofs are carrying on like they've never had any handouts
https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/s...d/news-story/f6ddf0c36204165511c87836d52eb056
Sydney chairman Andrew Pridham calls on funding help with Swans to lose out over stadium rebuild
Neil Cordy, The Daily Telegraph
December 18, 2017 7:36pm
THE AFL and the Swans are the big losers in
Sydney’s $2 billion stadium rebuild.
The first thing the code will be without is the venue which has hosted the 11 largest crowds outside Victoria in the game’s history.
The red and white army
won’t miss ANZ Stadium, but their club is in for a host of challenges in the coming years which include sharing their home ground with the Sydney Roosters, NSW Waratahs, State of Origin and possibly Sydney FC.
The wear and tear alone will restrict their ability to train on their home ground. It’s a squeeze the Swans have been feeling for a long time as they fight for space in the most competitive sporting market in the world.
Their practice ground opposite the SCG recently lost one of its wings to Sydney’s light rail project. The Swans are currently training at Sydney Grammar School, running around a heavy roller on their cricket pitch.
But the biggest tightening the Swans will feel is in the State Government’s purse strings.
They now find themselves well down the queue when it comes to the funding of any future developments at their home ground, including their much-desired training and administration centre.
As CEO of the Australian division of Moelis and Company, Swans chairman Andrew Pridham knows how to make money but this could be the toughest assignment of his tenure. His wish list is sensibly modest — new grandstands at the SCG aren’t on it but a new $50 million HQ is.
“Our training facility is one of the worst in the AFL,” Pridham said.
“(That’s) when you consider the Swans are the biggest tenant at the SCG, we have the biggest supporter group of any sporting club in Australia with 1.2 million. We’re the biggest sporting club in NSW. It’s not unfair that we would look for government support.”
The SCG Trust has a blueprint for the replacement of the Brewongle/Churchill and Bill O’Reilly Stands but the Swans aren’t particularly interested in any of them at the moment.
“We have no desire for the Brewongle or the Bill O’Reilly stands to be redeveloped, that’s not on our agenda, we’ve never really pushed it,” Pridham said.
“Our focus is about our training facilities and ovals so we can get a women’s team going. So we can keep our academy going and our indigenous program going and our senior team.”
The Swans’ training and administration facility is way off the pace when it comes to most of the teams in the AFL.
Fremantle is spending a staggering $100 million on their new complex and Essendon have a stunning set up at Tullamarine, complete with MCG and Etihad Stadium replicas on which to train. But Pridham and the Swans are aiming for around half that money.
“In the context of this stadium strategy our needs are very, very modest,” Pridham said.
“We are talking pennies compared to what’s going on elsewhere. We’re important to a lot of people in NSW so we want that reflected. We can’t get a women’s team and grow our academy until we’ve got the facilities. But equally important is we need ovals to train on.”