Club officials confirmed to au.fourfourtwo.com today that the New Zealand side was dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s before letting the FFA examine the proposal.

Phoenix want to base around 10 youngsters in Canberra for the A-League youth competition. Senior players in the Phoenix squad would then be flown over to make up the rest of the squad for matches.

The Wellington franchise already has the blessing of the Capital Football Federation after consultations with the ACT body and see no reason why they should not be included in the Youth League.

A Phoenix spokesman said: “Tony Pignata is finalizing the submission on the Youth League now and it’ll be sent to the FFA on Friday.”

It is understood that the FFA has already been made aware of Phoenix's desire to join the competition but some fine-tuning was required.

As revealed exclusively by au.fourfourtwo.com, Phoenix were furious shut out of the competition when it was first announced.

Pignata said: “If the other seven teams in the A-League have the opportunity to take advantage of the new youth structure but we don’t then that’s clearly not something we are happy with. We wouldn’t want to find ourselves falling behind the other clubs in that way.

“We believe it can be done. We established an entire football club in only a few months. We’re pretty determined.

“With ourselves included we feel the league would be all the better for it. You’d then have eight teams and no need for a bye.”

Meanwhile, preparations for the senior side begin later this week with the players reporting back to the club to begin pre-season training.

New boys Andrew Durante, Leo Bertos and Jon McKain are all expected to feature in the first run out since the players went their separate ways at the end of January.

And the club today revealed they will be making a 'major announcement' on Thursday but would give no further details.