EXCLUSIVE: Geoff Lord has reignited the debate over Melbourne Heart saying the red and whites have taken support away from Melbourne Victory and should be relocated out of the CBD.
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Lord stepped down earlier this year after six years as Melbourne Victory Chairman.
Speaking to au.fourfourtwo.com at Sunday's launch of South Melbourne FC’s new Lakeside Stadium, the former Victory powerbroker hinted a comeback might yet be on the cards, though not at his beloved Victory.
“I’d love to come back and do something. It might be to help South Melbourne get back into the A-League. That might be the way to go...” he said.
With the two-team model, Lord conceded it was difficult for any club to move into the A-League in Melbourne, but proposed a possible solution.
“They’re definitely not going to have a three-side model [in Melbourne]," he said.
“What they should do is move Heart out of town and stick them out at [Geelong's] Kardinia [Park] or somewhere, or Casey [the outer suburbs of Melbourne].
“That might create an opportunity, that might be the way to go.”
These comments will add extra spice to the Melbourne derby on December 23 at AAMI Park with Heart now surging into third spot on the ladder ahead of Victory in a very disappointing eighth place.
Although Heart's attendances continue to be dwarfed by Victory's, they are slowly growing but not fast enough for Lord.
Lord was equally blunt about Heart inability to build a bigger fan-base sooner.
“It’s not a surprise because they’ve come in and plagiarized an existing territory," he said.
“If they’d gone to Casey – if the FFA had been strong enough on that – what would’ve happened is they’d have attracted a whole new set of fans, rather than plagiarizing the ones that are there now.
“Melbourne Victory weren’t going to give them up so the best they can do is 10-20% of Melbourne Victory’s fans. That’s why they’d not be getting the numbers.”
Lord added: “They’d [Heart] be losing $3m a year so it’s not the sort of thing anyone wants to do every day.
"Heart could play here [Lakeside] but they did spend $400m on AAMI so you’d want to utilize it a little bit.”
Follow me on Twitter @Aidothejourno
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