Cairns emerges as the frontrunner to be new home of China game ahead of expected announcement shifting the AFL game from Shanghai
Port Adelaide’s Round 11 match against St Kilda could be shifted from Shanghai to Far North Queensland as an unlikely venue has emerged as a contingency frontrunner.
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Far North Queensland has emerged as a potential location for Port Adelaide’s China game against St Kilda, as an announcement the clash in Shanghai will be shifted because of coronavirus concerns is expected shortly.
Cairns’ Cazalys Stadium is in the box seat to pick-up the soon displaced AFL game in China for season 2020, if it can secure the relevant funding.
The official announcement around the China game on May 31 being canned is now expected to come this week, possibly as early as Monday.
An AFL spokesman said there was no change to their official position but they were still “closely monitoring the situation”.
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Port Adelaide chief executive Keith Thomas said last week he hoped a final decision would be reached around the middle of March.
“We will have to make that decision sooner,” he said.
“My view is that sort of in March is the very latest that we can go, and I would have thought that would be mid-March.”
Thomas said there were four contingency plans for the game, which would revert back to a St Kilda home match, if it was not safe to go to China.
“If we were just considering footy we could probably make a decision in May but it’s not. It’s about giving people confidence that they can travel to China and that we can hold an event in China that is safe,” Thomas said.
One of them involves a Monday night game at Marvel Stadium, but Thomas last week said that was an option he wasn’t a fan of.
AFL Cairns have been on the front foot for months trying to land the game in Far North Queensland and have been in ongoing discussions to secure the game.
AFL Cairns, Tourism and Events Queensland and Cairns Regional Council will now have to find the funding, set to be around $800,000, to bring the game to Cairns.
TEQ are set to meet early this week to decide how much they can contribute to the game, with AFL and the local council to stump up the rest.
With the Saints set to lose upwards of $800,000 from the China game not going ahead, the option to take the cash from FNQ and play the game at Cazalys Stadium is now an attractive one.
St Kilda CEO Matt Finnis and St Kilda boss Simon Lethlean are a chance to inspect facilities in Cairns in the coming weeks before the game is officially ticked off.
Last year was the first in almost a decade where Cairns had not hosted a game, with elite AFL games have come to Cairns every year since 2011, with the Gold Coast Suns, Western Bulldogs and Richmond both previously moving home games north.
AFL Cairns have made no secret of their interest to bringing AFL games back to the Far North.
“We are now working hard towards 2020,” AFL Cairns boss Gary Young late in 2018.
“We are looking at different ideas, with different ways to approach getting a game in Cairns.”
It would bring Cairns Saints junior Charlie Dixon back to the ground where he played on as a junior.
Last week The Advertiser reported that some of the official travel agents for the China match had stopped selling packages to Shanghai because of the virus.
Originally published as Cairns emerges as the frontrunner to be new home of China game ahead of expected announcement shifting the AFL game from Shanghai