What is the status of the club’s Hyundai A-League licence for next season and beyond?
That’s still an ongoing issue. The FFA hasn’t awarded licence extensions to any clubs at the moment. The feedback we’ve had from them is that there’s no problem. They know what we want, which is to have the licence direct rather than the Phoenix being a sub-licensee of New Zealand Football. It’s looking very promising and NZ Football is supportive. The second issue we are lobbying for is admission to the Asian Champions League. That will be a big step for the club and will signal to everyone that we must be taken seriously. I recently attended the Asian confederation conference in Kuala Lumpur and things are developing well. Asia is the way forward for us and what Adelaide United have achieved in the ACL is an indicator of the huge growth in the status of the Hyundai A-League. It’s imperative that we go down that track. We have been told that we are not part of Oceania given that our players are registered in Australia, so we’re pushing things forward through Asia. There has been plent
