http://foxsports.news.com.au/story/0...-23211,00.html
Sharks keen to go solo
By Jon Pierik
April 7, 2006
SOUTHPORT Sharks Football Club prefers to begin as a new stand-alone AFL entity on the Gold Coast, but is ready to embrace a relocated Victorian team.
Sharks boss Paul Wyatt, who is spearheading the cashed-up club's quest for an AFL licence, wants a team based in South-East Queensland as soon as possible.
AFL boss Andrew Demetriou has said he wants a club based there or in the western suburbs of Sydney within the next decade, but Wyatt has warned of the dangers of waiting too long.
"If it's 10 years, they might find the horse has bolted," Wyatt said.
"We want it in the shortest possible time. It's an area that has the growth and development to host a national licence.
"In 10 years, a lot can happen in the development of a rival code's position in any area in Australia."
Momentum is building for the Kangaroos to shift north.
Wyatt said he hadn't spoken to the Roos recently but, if the club made the move, the Sharks would look after its Melbourne members and protect its history.
He said the 1996 merger between Brisbane Bears and Fitzroy Lions would be the ideal model to follow.
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The Sharks are also offering the Kangaroos at least $400,000 a game to play home matches at Carrara from next year and end their experiment with Canberra's Manuka Oval.
The AFL is keen to have six to eight matches at Carrara from next year.
The Sharks have underwritten five AFL games at Carrara this season for $1.2 million, including two home-and-away matches, starting next week when Melbourne plays Adelaide.
While happy to embrace a Melbourne club, Wyatt said the preferred option was for the creation of a new club to be known as the Southport Sharks.
"It would be a much cleaner approach from our point of view, even though in that consideration a time frame would be needed (to set the club up), like the licences in the past."
The Sharks have applied for an AFL licence since 1996, with Wyatt revealing he had approached half a dozen clubs about a possible merger.
"In the early days there was interest," he said.
"But a relocation has been viewed as a last resort, especially in the emotional area."
A new rugby league club, the Gold Coast Titans, will join the NRL competition next year, but Wyatt said AFL was the preferred code in the area.