St Kilda to play Port Adelaide in China next year

ST KILDA will play Port Adelaide in China next season in a huge off-field coup for the club, with the two to face-off on a Sunday in Round 11 next year. Saints CEO Matt Finnis reveals why his club was desperate to secure the fixture.

ST KILDA will play in China next season in a huge off-field coup for the club.

The Saints will replace Gold Coast as Port Adelaide’s opponent at Shanghai’s Jiangwan Stadium, with the AFL confirming the match-up on Thursday.

The Saints and Power will face-off in Round 11, on Sunday June 2.

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It’s understood St Kilda will wear its home strip.

The first Victorian team to play for premiership points in China, St Kilda has signed a lucrative three-year deal endorsed by the Victorian Government to feature in the fixture.

The arrangement is expected to earn the Saints more than $2 million across three years, plus what it can make out of it commercially.

“When we first approached Port Adelaide several months ago to discuss the opportunity, foremost in our mind was giving our players the chance to be able to showcase their incredible athleticism, their great skills on a national but now global stage but also how we can really strengthen our club,” St Kilda CEO Matt Finnis said.

St Kilda will play Port Adelaide in China next year. Picture: Sarah Reed

“The opportunity for any football club to grow and to create value is foremost in our mids. It allows us to be the strong club we want to be to then lead to the on-field success that we all strive for.

“To be able to partner with the Victorian Government to be able to grow trade and commerce from Victoria into China and then China back into Victoria is a wonderful opportunity for the St Kilda Football Club.

“For the St Kilda Football club, the opportunity for our fans to know that our club is growing and that our club is going to be stronger through this opportunity.

“For our players, to have a crack at knocking off Port Adelaide in Shanghai, bring their first loss in that market, we haven’t been able to knock them off in Port Adelaide for the last few years, so we’ll have a crack at knocking them off in Shanghai next year.”

The Victorian Government is a major trade partner with China and having a Victorian club is seen as ideal to foster foreign relations.

AFL general manager of clubs and broadcasting Travis Auld said momentum is building for the AFL in China.

“We’ve seen some pretty extraordinary growth in commercial interest and in broadcast interest and we look forward to that continuing,” he said.

Port Adelaide played Gold Coast in China in 2017 and 2018. Picture: Getty

While the Saints are expected to be named as the home team, they will effectively pass the those rights to the Power, who will take all gate takings.

But the Saints will wear their traditional strip in what had become an issue between the Power and Suns.

Gold Coast irritated Port Adelaide by wearing their red and yellow home jumper that was seen by the Power to draw affinity with the Chinese.

St Kilda’s home red, black and white jumper would mean Port would be forced to wear its white clash jumper or develop a new one to avoid confusion.

The AFL is expected to release its full fixture next week.

Gold Coast told the AFL in September they had no interest in returning to Shanghai in 2019 after playing two fixtures against Port Adelaide in the past two season.

“ (2018) was our last foray to China,” Cochrane announced at the club’s club champion awards on Saturday night.

“The board have decided that to give the playing group every possible chance in the future that the trip is too onerous and too difficult.

“We have stepped away from repeating the trip again to China and we will leave the Port Adelaide chairman (David Koch) to argue with someone else about the colour of their jumper.”