Greens bench support for Tasmania’s AFL team but AFL House stays silent
It was the trademark cone of silence from AFL House after the Greens’ decision to bench their support for a Tasmanian AFL licence as well as the proposed Macquarie Point stadium.
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IT was the trademark cone of silence from AFL House on Saturday following the Greens’ decision to bench their support for a Tasmanian AFL licence as well as the proposed Macquarie Point stadium.
The Greens’ decision comes five months after AFL boss Gillon McLachlan visited Hobart in November to announce an in-principle agreement with the state government for an AFL team, pending a stadium.
McLachlan at the time said: “To play in this national competition we need the venue.
“Not everyone will have that view but I would urge everyone to look at how Adelaide Oval, Optus Stadium in Perth and others [stadiums] have transformed those states and what they have done for those states economically as well as the less tangible things like pride and confidence and that’s what we will get right here.”
As for securing Federal stadium funding, which Tassie team supporters hope will be forthcoming in the Federal Budget on May 9, McLachlan said: “I’m not going to speak to the politics. I’ve spent many years walking into rooms and pitching business cases and ideas and visions”.
“The AFL has a track record of delivering what it says, and I do believe the business case stacks up for this stadium and that’s our job to prosecute it.”
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