The FFA today admitted they were determined to squeeze the maximum amount of value from the licence fee before green lighting clubs.

They had also been in intensive talks with the Victoria State government over the proposal to build the new stadium for the Team 11 bid as the deadline approached.

It's believed the two successful bids paid in the region of $15m each for their licence fees, with the minimum entry fee believed to be around $13m.

"It's not appropriate to go into the negotiations that we had," said Gallop today. "But I've already said some of those negotiations happened in the closing days and hours of where we ended up.

"It was really important that we achieved the affordability bar that we put in place.

"A-League licences are valuable assets and it was really important that to make sure that we hit the bar we needed to hit...and kept value for our existing owners in what a licence to be in the A-League represents."

The FFA had insisted they would be taking into consideration all factors involved in each bid, but made no secret that it would be squeezing every potential club for the very most they could afford.

The FFA had set a minimum fee – which would cover future expenses plus the perceived value of the licence – that kept bids in the running for a licence... and only then would they look at other factors too.

But Gallop said it was not simply a case of the highest bid won at the end of the day – and the South-West Sydney bid insisted they had not been asked for any extra last minute cash to get their bid over the line yesterday.

"We've made it clear from day one that this was going to take in a range of criteria," said Gallop.

"Part of that criteria was the licence fee to make it affordable for the FFA, for the existing owners, for the member federations, the grassroots, the national team... 

"That's why we had to make sure that we got to that bar before we take this forward."

He added: "When you've got bidders, you're going to find yourself going down to the closing period still talking about what can be done to improve bids.

"We wouldn't be doing our job if we hadn't done that."