Roof or no roof, the Tasmania Devils will hit the ground running in 2028 – after the haggling

Haggling over the stadium in Tasmania will drag on for months – but the AFL cannot afford another calamity in the Apple Isle to ensure the Devils will hit the ground running in 2028.

For a man clinging desperately to his AFL chairmanship, Richard Goyder knows he can’t afford another calamity in Tasmania.

All the tough talk suggests the league’s commission (and 18 clubs) will play hard ball with the Apple Isle if plans for a $1 billion-plus roofed stadium in Hobart are scuppered as a result of next month’s state election.

Independent MP Ruth Forrest from Tassie’s north-west put it best this week, “the AFL would be absolutely mad to walk away now” – and they know it.

Roof or no roof, the Tasmania Devils will hit the ground running as football’s 19th club in 2028.

The most likely scenario from here is that the league agrees to push back delivery of a completed stadium to about 2031, with the team to play out of Launceston and Bellerive Oval in the interim.

Roof or no roof, the Tasmania Devils will hit the ground running in 2028. Picture: Michael Willson/AFL Photos

Haggling over what a roof will look like (or whether there is wriggle room in the contract for what actually constitutes a roof) will drag on for months, but a compromise now appears the only way out for Goyder and AFL chief executive Andrew Dillon, regardless of the outcome at the polls on July 19.

Another poll in Hobart’s Mercury newspaper on Monday found the majority of Tasmanians want the state government to renegotiate its deal with the AFL to build a stadium with a roof at Macquarie Point.

“I think the AFL needs to come back to the table, but they won’t until they have to, and I get that,” Forrest said of the state of play this week.

“They are a big corporation and there are a lot of people with a lot at stake. But to walk away would be incredibly disrespectful to all of the work that’s already gone in and the passion that’s been built.

“I support a stadium. I’m not opposed to a new stadium. I also accept that it should be in Hobart, even though that’s problematic for the people I represent in terms of distance.

“But we need to limit the cost and we need to limit the risk and we need to have a real grown-up conversation about how this can be done in a way that doesn’t expose Tasmania to a project where the cost far outweighs the benefits.”

Proposed alternative designs for Hobat's Macquarie Point stadium without a roof.

The most likely scenario from here is that the stadium timeline is pushed back.

One such alternative is “The Den” precinct proposal for Macquarie Point designed by local architect and Hobart Brewing Company co-owner Don Gallagher – a 30,000-seat multipurpose stadium with an open air MCG-sized playing field suitable for football, cricket, soccer and rock concerts.

“We believe Hobart deserves a better outcome and have been proposing this alternative since it was included in the 2019 AFL taskforce submission,” Gallagher said.

“The proposal is site responsive, it respects the city’s heritage, planning regulations and scale, extending the landscape from the domain down into the heart of the city – and fans are sheltered under the roof overhang, which functions as hotel suites and corporate boxes.”

A third option for a 23,000-seat roofed stadium is being pushed at nearby Regatta Point.

The current dome-roofed design – talked up during this week’s Tasmanian Planning Commission hearings as Hobart’s version of the “Opera House” – has been priced as high as $1.5b, a blowout attributed largely to the construction of the roof.

It was revealed at the hearings that cricket chiefs recently struck a “heads of agreement” with the Rockliff Government to work on a roof suitable for all forms of the summer game, including Test matches, which sounds like the time for compromise has already begun.

Whatever the outcome, it’s now almost certain Tasmania will fail to meet its obligations to have 50 per cent of a roofed stadium built by October 2027 and a fully completed ground by 2029.

One belief is that a “roof” might only have to incorporate shelter for the fans – not the playing surface – but pressure will be ramped up on the league in the coming months to increase its own paltry contribution of $15 million.

The Albanese Government has committed $240m but might also have to dig a bit deeper to support a project that will inject life into the Tasmanian economy and Australian rules locally.

Too much hard work (including by rival clubs planning for a heavily compromised 2027 national draft) has been done for the AFL to back out now.

The deal struck by then AFL CEO Gillon McLachlan in 2023 may ultimately prove a roof too far, but Tasmania will get its team no matter the posturing.