Newly appointed AFL Queensland CEO Michael Conlan can envisage an AFL team based in Cairns as early as 2020 given the playing infrastructure already in place in the city. The former Fitzroy forward visited AFL Cairns headquarters on Tuesday to meet league president Gary Young, as well as representatives from AFL Cape York, the AFL Cairns Women’s League and the AFL Cairns Umpires Association.
While more immediate issues regarding the growth of the game were discussed, Conlan believes AFL’s future in the Far North is extremely bright. Cairns became part of the AFL landscape last year when the city hosted its first home-and-away fixture between Richmond and the Gold Coast at Cazalys. The clubs will play each other at the venue for the next two years, but Conlan doesn’t think the region’s AFL supporters will have to wait too long for their own team to support.
"I would say by 2020 we’d be very close to having an AFL team based up around the north Queensland area," he said. "I think we’ve got great foundations here, we’ve got great infrastructure, got a very strong administrative team, who are great custodians for our game.
"I’d be very confident in thinking we’d be able develop our plans and by 2020, or the very least 2025, there’d be a team playing out of the North Queensland area."
In the meantime, Conlan said Cairns would become a regular destination for the AFL and hopefully home to an NEAFL franchise in the coming years.
"We’d love to see more AFL games played up here, more preseason competition games played here, and we’d love to bring the NEAFL up here," he said. "I think if you look at the staircase of where the AFL has come in Queensland, we now have two AFL teams in Queensland in the Brisbane Lions and the Gold Coast Suns.”
Read more at http://www.cairns.com.au/article/2012/04/12/214171_local-sport-news.html
Courtesy of The Cairns Post.
Last Modified on 12/04/2012 09:30