i have nfi why Turrdles has given it the green light and said Sydney will get their 25 GF's when he hasn't even seen the design
Soccer hasn't
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/nsw...m-policy-berejiklian-nsw-20180329-p4z6xv.html
Sporting codes deliver verdict as stadium policy overhauled again
Sporting codes have delivered their verdict on the state government's latest backflip to its stadium policy.
Unveiling yet another iteration of its controversial policy,
Premier Gladys Berejiklian announced on Thursday the government had ditched plans for a $1.3 billion rebuild of ANZ Stadium in Olympic Park, and would instead undertake $800 million of renovations to convert it to a rectangular facility.
Ms Berejiklian confirmed the plan to knock down and rebuild Allianz Stadium, in Moore Park, would proceed unchanged, at a cost of $730 million.
The NRL has declared its support for the change; other organisations including Football Federation Australia and Cricket NSW were far less enthused.
NRL chief executive Todd Greenberg said he would have preferred it if the government had honoured its earlier commitment.
“Naturally I would have preferred to see a new stadium built at Sydney Olympic Park in line with our memorandum of understanding,” he said.
However, he said the revised strategy was still a "great outcome" for rugby league fans, and reaffirmed the NRL's commitment to playing the grand final in Sydney for the next 25 years.
Football Federation Australia, however, held back from expressing even qualified support, instead registering its dismay and a desire to see "more detail on the proposed refurbishment".
"We are disappointed that it will not be rebuilt because we believe NSW needs a large capacity, state-of-the-art rectangular venue to remain competitive with the other states," a spokesman said.
"Last year there were six football events at ANZ that attracted more than 50,000 people and football will need venues for similar large events in the future."
Less impressed still is Cricket NSW, which will lose its headquarters when Allianz is demolished. Its indoor centre will remain standing until the conclusion of the World T20 in November 2020, before it too is demolished.
"We'll effectively be homeless in the new year, and our players and community won't have an indoor centre to train in from some time in the next 2½ years," Cricket NSW chief executive Andrew Jones said.
The outcome is a victory for the powerful SCG Trust, which manages Allianz Stadium. The trust, whose board members include influential broadcaster Alan Jones and businessmen Tony Shepherd, lobbied extensively for the Allianz rebuild.
"It is very clear that a redevelopment of Allianz Stadium is the most sensible use of public money," Mr Shepherd said.
Mr Jones, however, was scathing in his assessment of the trust, which he said had failed in its responsibility to find a "satisfactory interim solution or long-term solution" for Cricket NSW.
"We continue to work with them to try and achieve that but it's fair to say they've created a problem without yet having a solution," he said.
Ms Berejiklian was pushed into Thursday’s backflip after the government struggled to defend the dual-stadium rebuild policy, which was expected to cost $2.5 billion.
Recent polling revealed almost 60 per cent of voters opposed the plan.
Faced with the challenge of explaining yet another revision of the policy, Ms Berejiklian relied heavily on the government’s receipt of business cases from Infrastructure NSW, which showed the renovation of ANZ stadium would save taxpayers $500 million.
Cricket NSW staked an early bid for a slice of the savings pool, calling for it to be used to fund a new home for cricket at the SCG.
Sports NSW, the peak body for sport across the state, called for the savings to be invested in "desperately needed community sporting infrastructure".
“The opportunity has been created today to ensure that the government invests $500 million now
into the community facility needs of both male and female participants, at all levels, and across all codes of sport,” Sport NSW chairman Joseph La Posta said.
Correction: This story has been updated to reflect the fact that the NSW government's business cases were prepared by Infrastructure NSW, not Infrastructure Australia, as stated in an earlier version of the story.
