Port Adelaide’s new opponent in Shanghai to be confirmed by AFL next week
PORT Adelaide’s new opponent for its third AFL match in Shanghai, China will be declared by the AFL next week. with St Kilda still the leading contender for the match that will now be played in early June.
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PORT Adelaide’s new opponent in China — long touted as St Kilda — will be confirmed by the AFL next week in Melbourne.
Port Adelaide chief executive Keith Thomas told his club’s members at Alberton on Thursday night the finer details for next year’s AFL match in Shanghai are ready to be detailed by the league.
Gold Coast has withdrawn from the only match for AFL premiership points played outside Australia leaving the Victorian State government — a major player in export trade with China — with opportunity to underwrite the presence of a Melbourne-based club in the match at Jiangwan Stadium.
The Victorian State government also wants the event expanded with an AFLW presence.
A Victorian rival for the third match in Shanghai also suits Port Adelaide’s needs for greater exposure for the game in the Australian market, particularly with television coverage after last year’s game with the Suns fell off free-to-air commercial television to Fox Footy.
The match is to be moved from mid-May to early June.
St Kilda will sell a home game to accommodate the Power’s “China Strategy”. Port Adelaide cannot sell any of its 11 home matches at Adelaide Oval by the State government orders from its $535 million funding of the city venue’s redevelopment.
The move from the Suns to the Saints does, as Gold Coast chairman Tony Cochrane noted last month, set up another intriguing question on the jumpers to be worn in Shanghai. In Saints-Power matches played in Melbourne, St Kilda has worn its red-white-and-black home guernsey and Port Adelaide donned its white clash jumper.
AFL confirmation of the China game next week is the start of strategic detailing of next year’s league fixture that is to be fully released at the end of October.
michelangelo.rucci@news.com.au