Greg O'Rourke has reportedly settled on which two bids he wants to win entry into the A-League.GETTY IMAGES
A-League Head Greg O’Rourke will recommend to the outgoing Football Federation Australia board "which two teams should join an expanded national competition," but he wants the governing body’s new board to "endorse his decision," according to Marco Monteverde of the Brisbane COURIER-MAIL. The board led by FFA Chair Steven Lowy, which will be replaced next month, will meet on Tuesday, "with expansion on the agenda." O’Rourke "has settled on which two of the eight remaining expansion bids" -- which come from NSW, Victoria, Queensland and Canberra -- he wants, "in what would become a 12-team A-League." However, with the possibility that the new board "could overturn" the departing board's expansion decision, O’Rourke said that it was "common sense" that the choice be made by the new chair and directors, which would mean the "long proposed" Oct. 31 announcement would be delayed. O'Rourke: "Are we ready to make a recommendation? Yes, but the other thing is, do we think that this board should be the one to approve that recommendation? This board is meeting for effectively the last time operationally ... so the question for them will be whether or not they want to make the call, or whether they want the newly-constituted board to make the call, and that’s the thing that I don’t know" (COURIER-MAIL, 10/15). In Sydney, Vince Rugari reported O'Rourke said that he "had no idea what the current FFA board would do, let alone how the next one would feel about expansion." The new board would have the power to "reverse any decisions made before them if they wanted to." O'Rourke: "I clearly don't want expansion delayed. The people I talk to who are involved in the nomination of board members, none of them have said they want expansion delayed." O'Rourke "was hopeful that even if the entry of the two new teams is delayed by a season, the announcement itself is not." He said, "Because that's where the excitement comes. That's where the ability for those clubs to then start recruiting, setting up, employing individuals, going into the community and getting their colors and the name of the club and all those sorts of things -- that momentum, we can't afford to push down the road" (SYDNEY MORNING HERALD, 10/15).
