Former Collingwood president Eddie McGuire has revealed an ambitious plan he laid before the AFL in the late-2000s that would have seen the Magpies playing multiple games on the Gold Coast every year.
In the lead up to the introduction of the AFL’s 17th license, McGuire proposed that Collingwood lay the foundation on the Gold Coast, essentially playing a chunk of their away games in Queensland.
It comes after he suggested on Footy Classified that a Victorian team do the same in Tasmania, in the lead up to a 19th team in Tassie in 2028.
“I’ve been thinking about this idea since about 2008 to be honest when North Melbourne said they didn’t want to go to the Gold Coast,” McGuire told SEN’s Dwayne’s World.
“I actually put a proposal that Collingwood go to the Gold Coast and play five or six games up there and the rest of their games at the MCG.
“That would have saved us all the heartache.
“We were then able to build all the facilities, the government would have got behind us in Queensland and then at a point in time we would hand it over to the Gold Coast Suns or my thesis at the time was you’d hand it to Southport and you get the president of Southport, you tie him to my leg, build up all the sponsorship so that you get it done.
“What we’ve done in the past and what I’m keen for football not to repeat is we tend to come up with an idea to put a team somewhere and then we come up with an ambitious business plan, because 10 years down the track we find out they were all in huts and didn’t have enough money which either means they got the figures wrong in the first place or they lied to us.
“What I’m trying to do with this one is Tasmania has to be done properly and if you’re going to do a 20th team, they really need to be done properly.
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“I’m saying let’s give ourselves some time. We have to make sure we don’t dilute the talent, there’s a way to go about that, but you can’t answer all these questions overnight and you certainly can’t do it on hope.
“I’m saying if we are going to be serious about doing this, let’s give everyone their homework, let’s put a name next to it and then we can decide whether we go on with it.”
