WESTERN Sydney Wanderers chairman Lyall Gorman has continued his demands for an immediate upgrade to Parramatta Stadium, as a taskforce was formed to lobby governments to fund it.
Parramatta City Council has formalised a committee to help secure funding at both state and federal level to expand local sporting and recreation facilities, with the stadium upgrade at its centre.
While Gorman welcomed the committee's establishment, he said the Wanderers can't wait after the success of the club's debut season.
"The Wanderers' need for upgrades to Parramatta Stadium is now," Gorman told The Daily Telegraph.
"We had three sell-out games last season and we're expecting our numbers to surge next season. The current capacity of Parramatta Stadium is inadequate.
"We're fully supportive of the advisory committee and we are very focused on working with the state and federal governments to achieve upgrades at Parramatta Stadium, but as major tenants of the stadium we need to ensure its commercial viability.
"Upgrades wouldn't impact on the overall planning of the precinct because it's imperative anyway. We need an immediate, staged approach to the upgrade of the stadium and its facilities."
The stadium currently holds some 20,000 fans, and the Wanderers managed to average more than half that across their first season.
Both home derbies against Sydney FC, and the semi-final win over Brisbane, were effective sell-outs.
The club expects to better the near 7000 members it secured last season when 2013-14 packages go on sale next week.
Replies
parra..... take a look at WSW........U MAY LEARN A THING OR TWO............
Parra are not averaging sell outs, so why would they care? lol
Excuse me, but, are you expecting a simple, logical solution to this problem?
You must be mad. There's an opportunity for money to be made here, through spending OTHER PEOPLES' money. They're not going to choose the easy route.
Because the Eels are determined to move all games to ANZ unless Parra Stadium is upgraded to 40-50k capacity. Slightly rediculous given the eels are struggling to sell out a game.
The difference is the Eels are NOT as keen to lobby for the upgrade, they are just happy to move...where as WSW appear to be fighting to stay at Parra Stadium. Its a bit sad really.
It seems as though they have only just managed to figure out who is actually going to be sitting, with news today saying that Roy is not going to be on the LC Board.
I bet!