EXCLUSIVE: Tuesday night's A-League blockbuster will be played with Melbourne Victory officials confident the poor Telstra Dome surface will be in much better condition for the visit of Adelaide United.
Victory trained on Telstra Dome yesterday (Sunday) and Victory officials told au.fourfourtwo.com today that talk about the game being called off was off the mark.
What's more, Victory are hopeful a large seasonal crowd for their first ever Tuesday night match at Docklands following crowds of 25- and 23,000 plus for their previous two games at the venue over the Christmas period.
ACL finalists Adelaide currently sit on 30 points with a game in hand on Victory on 29 points in second spot on the A-League ladder.
With four days to get the surface right, the Dome is expected to be in a vastly improved condition compared to last Friday night's shambles.
The game was almost abandoned due to the poor surface. Telstra Dome workers were seen picking debris – said to be glass and metal - out of the surface before Victory's 2-1 win over Queensland Roar.
Two nights earlier, on New Year's Eve, the Dome hosted a large dance party called Sensation with an estimated 40,000 punters partying the night away.
With tickets at around $125, the Dome may well have done well out of its venture into dance parties.
With that in mind, there has been talk of Melbourne Victory asking for compensation from the stadium for the shoddy surface that followed.
And adding to the stadium's woes comes the news the Dome is under fire from the AFL with the code also set for a legal battle.
The code's governing body is set to take legal action against Telstra Dome over the treatment of its tenant clubs and the venue's name change to Etihad Stadium.
The AFL is unhappy with what it believes is a sweetheart deal between the Dome and Melbourne Victory, a deal they say is better than their tenant clubs which have much higher break-even figures than the Victorian A-League franchise.
The AFL is currently refusing to refer to Telstra Dome as Etihad Stadium ahead of the name change in March.
"There are certain parts of the user agreement that make it very clear, from my understanding, that MSL's [Melbourne Stadiums Limited] not allowed to give other codes a better deal than the AFL, given that we have such a big impact on that stadium's revenue," AFL club North Melbourne's chairman told Eugene Arroca told Melbourne radio station SEN.
What's more, Victory are hopeful a large seasonal crowd for their first ever Tuesday night match at Docklands following crowds of 25- and 23,000 plus for their previous two games at the venue over the Christmas period.
ACL finalists Adelaide currently sit on 30 points with a game in hand on Victory on 29 points in second spot on the A-League ladder.
With four days to get the surface right, the Dome is expected to be in a vastly improved condition compared to last Friday night's shambles.
The game was almost abandoned due to the poor surface. Telstra Dome workers were seen picking debris – said to be glass and metal - out of the surface before Victory's 2-1 win over Queensland Roar.
Two nights earlier, on New Year's Eve, the Dome hosted a large dance party called Sensation with an estimated 40,000 punters partying the night away.
With tickets at around $125, the Dome may well have done well out of its venture into dance parties.
With that in mind, there has been talk of Melbourne Victory asking for compensation from the stadium for the shoddy surface that followed.
And adding to the stadium's woes comes the news the Dome is under fire from the AFL with the code also set for a legal battle.
The code's governing body is set to take legal action against Telstra Dome over the treatment of its tenant clubs and the venue's name change to Etihad Stadium.
The AFL is unhappy with what it believes is a sweetheart deal between the Dome and Melbourne Victory, a deal they say is better than their tenant clubs which have much higher break-even figures than the Victorian A-League franchise.
The AFL is currently refusing to refer to Telstra Dome as Etihad Stadium ahead of the name change in March.
"There are certain parts of the user agreement that make it very clear, from my understanding, that MSL's [Melbourne Stadiums Limited] not allowed to give other codes a better deal than the AFL, given that we have such a big impact on that stadium's revenue," AFL club North Melbourne's chairman told Eugene Arroca told Melbourne radio station SEN.
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