Stadium redevelopment in Sydney supported – but not overwhelmingly

The NSW election to be held this Saturday is generally considered to be close, with one of the important differentiators the issue of stadium development.

On the one hand, the incumbent government of Gladys Berejiklian intends to demolish the existing 30-year-old Sydney Football Stadium (Allianz) and replace it with a new state-of-the-art stadium complemented by improvements to surrounding infrastructure for a facility that, if a cost-benefit analysis was done today, would probably not have been built in its current location in the first place. The estimated cost is $700 million. Berejiklian is also proposing to redevelop the 20-year-old Olympic Stadium (ANZ) at an estimated cost of $800 million.

By way of contrast, the current opposition led by Michael Daley, intends allowing redevelopment to occur, but by ensuring that the SCG Trust which runs Sydney Football Stadium funds the redevelopment themselves, not via taxpayers' money. Daley would prefer to see those funds go to the development of schools or hospitals.

Even before FFA Board directors last night encouraged the football community to “get angry and show some passion” in respect of arguing for facilities, last week we asked Football Today readers what you think in respect of Sydney Football Stadium.

Because we're a football site, we expected the responses to be skewed in favour of the official Sydney FC position that favours the Berejiklian plan. Sydney FC even issued a reminder to members to that effect. Almost four in 10 of the 2,080 respondents (38.2%) indicated they are Sydney FC members.

Of all of the respondents, 69.8% live in Sydney; a further 14.1% elsewhere in NSW; and the remainder (16.1%) elsewhere in Australia.

More than half of respondents (56.1%) agreed with the Berejiklian plan, but a significant number (37.6%) also disagreed. The remainder (6.3%) were undecided.

Amongst Sydney FC members, the support for the Berejiklian plan was larger with 88.8% agreeing with it and the rest (11.2%) disagreeing.

In terms of the rating of the existing stadium on a simple star rating, there was a difference between Sydney FC and non-Sydney FC members. More than one-third of Sydney FC members (35.3%) gave it a two-star rating or less, but only 13.9% rated it that lowly amongst non-members. Perhaps surprisingly, 19% of Sydney FC members rated it four stars or better, compared with a little more than one-quarter (25.9%) rating it four stars amongst non-members.

Overall, under two-thirds (64.7%) of Sydney FC members had a positive rating of the stadium (three stars or better), while 85.1% of non-members had a positive rating.