‘Not what the fans want’: Wests Tigers’ new stadium proposal slammed as ‘ridiculous’

October 7, 2023 admin Uncategorized 0

Darcy Byrne, mayor of the Inner West Council, has criticized the Wests Tigers’ plan to erect a 20,000-seat stadium in Liverpool, a suburb of Sydney.

The initiative is still in its early stages, but Liverpool Mayor Ned Mannoun told 2GB that it had been in the works for a while.

It would be with a view to making Liverpool the Tigers’ permanent home, in a facility on the corner of the Hume Highway and Remembrance Avenue, in the heart of the city’s southwest.

According to The Sydney Morning Herald, the idea is dependent on the construction of 3000 additional flats on the site, a combination of private, public, and build-to-rent homes from which the money raised would be used to pay for the stadium.

The proposal, however, was slammed as “ridiculous” by Inner West Council Mayor Darcy Byrne, whose Council is responsible for the Tigers’ spiritual home at the ageing Leichhardt Oval.

Leichhardt, as well as the club’s second home ground in Campbelltown, is slated to be upgraded pending funding from the state government.

“Any attempt to move Wests Tigers home ground to Liverpool will be met with hard resistance from supporters,” Mayor Byrne, himself a Tigers tragic, wrote in a statement.

“It’s not what the fans want, and there is no mandate to propose it.”

Byrne referred to the Tigers’ recent return to their traditional home grounds for 2024, eschewing larger and more modern facilities at Accor Stadium and CommBank Stadium respectively, and called on the club to focus its efforts on the field.

“After a decade of campaigning, we‘ve convinced the Club to return to our spiritual home grounds of Leichhardt and Campbelltown in 2024,” he said.

“The adopted position of Wests Tigers Board is to advocate for the long overdue funding to upgrade Leichhardt and Campbelltown.

“The ridiculous idea of now moving all home games to a new stadium in Liverpool, funded by property developers, is absurd and not in keeping with the Club‘s commitment to fans and members.

“Wests Tigers is a much loved sporting franchise not a property development company.

“The Club has no business advocating for housing policies in Liverpool, it‘s time to focus on winning football games and finally making the top eight.”

Lee Hagipantelis, the Club chairman, as well as A-League club Macarthur Bulls, who share the Tigers’ tenancy at Campbelltown, declined to comment when approached by the Herald.

It comes amid reports that the controversial Hagipantelis was on the brink of losing his spot as chair, refusing an invitation to stand down by the club’s majority shareholder, Holman Barnes (owners of Wests Ashfield Leagues Club).

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