NORTHERN NSW Football is asking the Hunter soccer community to tell the NSW government it is their sport’s time to have a state-of-the-art headquarters.
NNSWF yesterday launched a campaign to increase pressure on the government to provide $7.3million for the proposed $11.3million facility at Speers Point Park.
Lake Macquarie City Council is supporting the push to gain money from the Hunter Infrastructure and Investment Fund to build an administrative base, elite training centre and five-a-side centre.
The HIIF board decided on February 13 which projects to recommend to planning minister Brad Hazzard for approval, and their confidential report is expected to be lodged to him next week.
NNSWF chief executive David Eland said he had written to Premier Barry O’Farrell, Hazzard and Liberal MPs in the Hunter to tell them about the campaign, but he needed the football community to play its part.
‘‘The football community is going to make it clear that it’s football’s time,’’ he said. ‘‘We are the region’s biggest sport and we deserve the government’s support for this project.
‘‘Rugby have a magnificent home base at No.2 Sportsground, hockey has a magnificent facility and netball are very well catered for at national park and at Charlestown, and we believe it’s football’s time to have a home base.
‘‘We’ve got $4million to put towards this project and we’re asking the government to share this vision and contribute.’’
He is asking clubs to send letters of support for the project to O’Farrell and Hazzard.
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Eland said he and FFA chief executive David Gallop had asked to meet with O’Farrell ‘‘as soon as possible to go through the project and make sure that the Premier’s aware how good this proposal is and how much support there is for it in the Hunter.’’
The lobbying came as FFA made a nationwide call yesterday for better soccer facilities in its Grounds for Complaint campaign.
It is a grassroots initiative that aims to give a voice to Australia’s soccer community to raise concerns about the chronic shortage of good pitches, training facilities, floodlights and change rooms.