The success of the FIFA Women’s World Cup will have a lasting impact on football in New Zealand’s biggest city with both a men's and women's A-League side on the cards for the 2024-2025 season.
Football Australia had signalled their intention to expand both the men’s and women’s A-League competitions, with Auckland earmarked for one of those clubs.
New Zealand has only one professional outfit, the Wellington Phoenix, with a women’s side joining the A-League Women’s competition in 2021-22.
New Zealand Football chief executive Andrew Pragnell said today the strengthened relationship between the national body here and Football Australia had solidified plans for a new professional club.
"It looks like we’re going to have an A-League team in Auckland next year which will be both a professional men’s side and a women’s side," Pragnell told 1News.
"Those types of things wouldn’t have happened without this World Cup."
The tournament has been enormously successful, from record-breaking crowds in both New Zealand and Australia and nearly two billion viewers tuning in worldwide.
"We’re absolutely rapt," Pragnell said.
"More than 700,000 people have attended the tournament, more than one in four Kiwis watched the opening game, the whole country’s been engaged, the media reaction’s been enormous. The world has been watching New Zealand and the outcome’s great."
With viewership and attendance records expected to be shattered again as the semifinals and final play out on both sides of the Tasman, and feedback from FIFA 'fantastic', Pragnell’s confident we could see the men’s World Cup hit our shores at some point in the future.
"I think in terms of a men’s World Cup, it’s about when not if," he said.
"That’s almost inevitable. The feedback from FIFA around the Women’s World Cup has been fantastic. They’re rapt at how the tournament’s going.
“We’ve got to think about the timing of that. I’m sure it would be with Australia but are there wider partners in the Asia Pacific region who we’d consider co-hosting with. There’s a real opportunity to make an Asia Pacific-type bid with Australia and New Zealand at the centre."
And there’s no question who Pragnell is getting behind as the tournament nears its conclusion.
"Obviously I’m a Football Ferns fan first and foremost, but I want them (Australia) to go all the way. I think seeing the Matildas take up and (potentially) win this Women’s World Cup is not only good for them but it’s good for us. We’re in this together."
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