Four Victorian bids will "vie with at least 11 other consortiums as the race to snare one of the two spots in an expanded A-League begins in earnest," according to Michael Lynch of the SYDNEY MORNING HERALD. Football Federation Australia said that it will bring in two new teams to "bolster the competition" for the '19-20 season, and despite the regular assertions that the league is "flat" and the game is "stagnating," there has been "no shortage of interest." Thursday is the deadline for expressions of interest to be lodged with Deloitte, the financial services company which is "sifting the applicants for the FFA." A-League Head Greg O'Rourke said that FFA's management team and leadership was "always confident that when it began the process there would be more than just token interest." There was a "very small chance" that if FFA received more than two outstanding bids, it could "consider adding more than two teams, but that remains improbable." O'Rourke said, "I would not say no completely [to more than two] but it's highly unlikely we would do that in this phase. We have said we will go with two new clubs, and we want to do this in an ordered and structured way." One of the issues that might mitigate against a "big bang" with more than two new teams added in '19-20 is FFA's "concern over player depth" (SMH, 5/23).
