A-League champions Western United to deliver on promised stadium?

Fresh off claiming their maiden A-League championship at the weekend, Western United have announced plans to deliver on their much anticipated home stadium.

The A-League expansion side, in what’s their third season, defeated Melbourne City 2-0 in Saturday’s Grand Final in front of a crowd of 22,495 at AAMI Park - one of five home grounds that the club during the 2021/22 season.

A purpose-built 15,000-seat stadium in Melbourne’s west formed part of Western United’s bid to join the competition.

First unveiled in June 2018, the club initially advised that work would commence as they debuted in the A-League in the 2019/20 season, with construction to be completed this year.

Amid mounting scepticism about the viability of the club’s plans and construction still yet to commence, Western United Club Chairman Jason Sourasis recently admitted the club's early timelines were “naïve”, but believes they are now on the verge of making real progress towards its planned home.

Sourasis told the Football From A to Z podcast “ultimately, publicly, we shouldn’t have come out with anything.

"The previous management came out and said, ‘You know what, if we had a piece of land right now and were building on it, it would take two years to build’.

"That was correct. But to put it in a bid document and make public statements around it was wrong because ultimately we had a piece of land that was zoned ‘rural'. There’s nothing on it other than cows eating grass. You can’t build anything on it.

"We came out and I’m not blaming anyone ... but I think it was a bit naive to come out and say it’s two years to build a stadium.”

With early site works commencing at the site in Tarneit in Western Melbourne late last year, Sourasis anticipates the stadium will be ready for play in 2024.

Prior to that, the club will play games out of a 5,000-capacity elite training facility. Announced in September 2020, the facility will be built adjacent to the club’s full 15,000-capacity stadium.

Updated renders for the facility show a vastly different looking venue and downsized grandstand from the initially released concepts. It’ll feature three pitches, including the training venue that will be capable of hosting A-League matches. There will also be a two-story building featuring a range of training and gym facilities, function and media spaces, change rooms and staff facilities.

Prior to completion of the main venue, Sourasis said the club intends to play some of its games at the elite training facility while the new main stadium is under construction but will still shifting home grounds during their championship-defending season.

The club currently trains at Essendon’s FC’s training facility, The Hangar, and this year played home games at AAMI Park, Mars Stadium and Morshead Park (Ballarat), GMHBA Stadium (Geelong) and UTAS Stadium (Launceston). The club had hoped to play games at Lakeside Stadium before South Melbourne successfully shut the A-League club out.

Sourasis explains “Victoria needs a rectangular stadium in the west, which we will deliver.”

While Western United have quickly performed well on the field, they have struggled to attract big crowds.

However, Sourasis is hopeful that this will change once the club has a permanent home, adding “we’ve got 9,000 members and we are nomads. We’ve played in Tassie, Ballarat, Western Oval, Marvel, AAMI, get kicked out of AAMI, get told to go to South Melbourne by the state government and then kicked out of South Melbourne

"(However), we’ll be playing out of our own rectangular stadium halfway through or towards the end of next season or the season after.”

Image: Populous' 2019 concept for Western United's stadium at Tarneit.