Sydney FC's CEO Tony Pignata has today attempted to provoke Western Sydney Wanderers to give up home advantage by playing the inaugural Sydney Derby at the Sydney Football Stadium.
In an interview given to SBS The World Game Pignata, who is the eastern Sydney club's seventh CEO in 7 years, has challenged Western Sydney Wanderers to give up the home advantage and take the game to Sydney Football Stadium.
While Pignata would be surprised if the club's executive chairman Lyall Gorman sacrificed home ground advantage - even though Wanderers would reap a rich reward from gate takings - he told The World Game: "The build-up for the game is going to be amazing and I would like to invite the Wanderers to come here and stage it at Allianz Stadium.
"I'd love for them to come to our home, attract a crowd maybe as high as 40,000, take the gate and be part of a great occasion.
"I'm not sure if they will but I'm sure we would have a superb atmosphere. Why not do a deal with the Sydney Trust and pack in the fans?
"It would great to see the stadium half sky blue and half black, red and white. The opportunity is there for them if they want it.
"People who go to that first derby will continue to come back to the game because it will be enormous. The result won't matter it will all be about the atmosphere and the intensity."
Opinion:
What an outlandish, ridiculous attempt to steal home ground advantage for a club so sorely needing press coverage that it's CEO will make an outlandish statement that no-one could possibly support.
By his logic, Tony should take their Sydney Football Stadium matches to Homebush Olympic Stadium. If he's that concerned about how many people can watch the matches he should do that for his own home games before he demands the Wanderers club do the same with it's home matches.
Does Everton take their games to Anfield because it has 5,000 more seats?
Does Manchester City take their games to Old Trafford because it has 28,000 more seats?
I suppose old Tone would want Real Madrid to take it's El Clásico matches to Camp Nou because it has 15,000 more seats than Santiago Bernabéu?
Maybe he could ask Japan if they would kindly play all matches against Australia at Homebush Olympic Stadium considering that Japan's stadiums aren't as big as it.
This idea should be immediately shut down by Lyall Gorman with a public press release. There is no justification whatsoever for giving away Western Sydney Wanderers marquee fixture to a stadium in the East of Sydney. Derby matches are not a plaything to be bought and sold. It's bad enough that there is still no public confirmation that the Derby matches will not be played at ANZ, but taking our home matches to our opponent is on another level entirely.
The idea is a joke and yet another example of how Sydney FC still doesn't and will never be a true part of Football in Western Sydney.
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