Professional football is officially returning to New Zealand’s largest city, with an A-League Men team arriving next season and an A-League Women team coming the season after that.
American billionaire Bill Foley was present for the official announcement on the Auckland waterfront on Tuesday, alongside the yet-to-be named club’s chief executive officer, Nick Becker and its chief commercial officer, Mike Higgins.
It has been just under two months since Foley, the chairman and owner of English Premier League club Bournemouth, and the founder of the Las Vegas Golden Knights NHL Hockey franchise, was revealed by Stuff as the leading contender to back the A-Leagues’ expansion into Auckland.
The city hasn’t been home to a professional football club since the New Zealand Knights folded in 2007, two years after they succeeded the Football Kingz when Australia’s National Soccer League was replaced by a new franchise-based competition.
There are fewer than 12 months until the start of the 2024-25 A-League Men and Women seasons and the tight timeframe was cited as the primary reason why the new club would not enter both competitions at the same time.
Plans for the men’s team already appear to be well advanced. “We’ve already made a deal with a director of football operations,” Foley told Stuff. “He’s in a situation where he has to wait a few days before we can announce him.
“We’re interviewing coaches. We have one primary coach that we’re really interested in, but we’re vetting a number of other coaches, and I believe we’ll have a coach in place within two weeks.
“We have to get ready for the January window. We’re going to sign really good players. We’re not going to fool around. We’ll use all our visa players and we’ll sign marquee players. We’ll probably spend too much in the first two years.”
Wellington Phoenix reserves coach Chris Greenacre would be a leading contender for either of the football roles Foley and Becker have to fill in the immediate future, as one of the few coaches out there who has the pro licence required to coach in A-League Men, but also has familiarity with that competition and the game in New Zealand more broadly.
Phil Walter
American billionaire Bill Foley, the owner of the new Auckland A-Leagues club.
When asked if Greenacre was the person the new club had in mind as director of football or men’s head coach, Foley said: “That’s a name. He’s a good man. We like him. More to come”.
Asked about the director of football specifically, Foley said: “He has to leave the job he’s doing right now and give the proper notice and so on. We think we’ll be able to announce something within a week or so.
“He knows New Zealand really well. He’s not an Aussie.”
The delayed entry of the new club into A-League Women will frustrate those keen to see the success of the FIFA Women’s World Cup earlier this year capitalised on.
“I’ve been through this once with the Golden Knights and we had about a year and a half to really put the team together … and it took us a year and a half,” Foley said, in explaining why the Auckland club would launch one team at a time.
“What I didn’t want to do was launch two teams and not do a good job. We’ll have a women’s team and they’ll play in 2025 and we will support it, just as we’re supporting Bournemouth.
“Many of you probably don’t know this, but the women’s team was actually run by a foundation, and we brought the women’s team in house at AFC Bournemouth. We’ve improved their facilities, we started recruiting and retaining really good players. We’re undefeated.
“We’ll have a really good women’s team, and we’ll put resources behind it and I’ll make you proud.”
Foley’s arrival on the Auckland sporting scene comes with Auckland Council having recently called for expressions of interest with regard to building a new stadium in the central city.
He said he and some of the partners he is involved with in other places would “have a lot of interest” in being part of discussions about a new stadium, potentially on the Auckland waterfront.
“It’s going to take some time. It’s not going to happen overnight. But we have a lot of ideas.”
No name, logo or home venue has been confirmed for the Auckland club, but Go Media Stadium Mt Smart, where the Phoenix men and women will play this Saturday, looms as their likely home in season one.
It has been just under a year since Foley took charge of Bournemouth, making it the flagship team of the Black Knight Football Club partnership he leads.. The multi-club ownership group also has a minority stake in FC Lorient, who play in France’s Ligue Un, and is exploring options in Scotland and the Netherlands.
