Western Sydney Wanderers are hoping to nearly double their memberships each season following the announcement of a new 30,000-seated stadium to be built in Parramatta.
By 2019, the Wanderers will call a modern football-specific stadium home after the state government confirmed $1.5 billion in funding for the upgrade of sporting venues across Sydney, with the site at the Parramatta park precinct listed as the first priority.
After spending almost two years lobbying for a new stadium at the site of their current home, Wanderers chairman Paul Lederer was thrilled with Friday's confirmation of the new venue that could make the Wanderers one of the biggest sporting franchises in NSW.
The number of full season ticket holders is capped at approximately 16,500 due to the 21,000 capacity at Parramatta Stadium. Depending on the final configuration and seating plan of the new stadium, the Wanderers will be able to offer an unprecedented number of memberships and corporate hospitality.
"I am very excited about it, very encouraged. It's a phenomenal thing for the Western Sydney people," Lederer said. "[Currently] we can't take in any more members because we haven't got a facility big enough. This will allow us to market the club and build up into the club that it should be and we could have a club anywhere from 25,000 to 30,000 members full-time, which will make a huge difference to our club."
There will be no disruptions to the Wanderers this season, with construction on the new stadium is expected to begin no earlier than December 2016. The club is yet to establish plans to play games away from Parramatta during the construction period but have not ruled out the possibility of a nomadic two years by playing home games in various stadiums across Sydney's west.
"We will be looking at all options, Belmore, Penrith and a couple of others will all be options we'll have to look at," Lederer said.
The announcement of the brand new stadium was a relief for the club who revealed they were almost forced to play recent Asian Champions League games away from Parramatta Stadium due to the dilapidated facilities.
"They're archaic, they're terrible, we had issues with the Asian Champions League where teams nearly refused to play there - not because of the ground, but because of the facilities. As soon as I got involved and our management team got involved, we realised really early in the piece that facilities [required upgrades]," Lederer said.
