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Western Melbourne A-League expansion side still without a home


New A-League addition Western Melbourne Group are no closer to a deal on where to play their home games from October.

And GMHBA Stadium boss Michael Brown has warned the ambitious franchise they're unlikely to be able to accommodate all their home fixtures at Kardinia Park next season.

Western Melbourne were granted entry into the 2019-20 competition after winning a hotly-contested expansion race last season.

Their proposal was to play matches out of the Geelong stadium while building a club-owned facility at Tarneit, but a deal is yet to be done, largely because of unknowns around next year's A-League fixture with the addition of an 11th team.

Brown said he was eager to see finalised plans from the club and FFA.

"There is no agreement. There is an interim discussion," he said. "We need information as to when they want to play their games, what does it mean for AFLW, for cricket ... when do they want to play their major games, their derbies.

"There's a long way to go and it needs to happen relatively quickly.

"We welcome them and we'll sit with them and we'll work with whatever we can do to accommodate them.

"It's going to be very difficult to play 13 home games here and we've said that from the start.

"There's a lesser number that we think, all that needs to be worked out and it will happen in the coming weeks."

Western Melbourne will present back to the trust on Feb. 15.

The club aren't concerned by the lack of a deal, and are currently exploring other venues in the region that may be interested and have the capacity to host matches.

The 36,000-capacity venue will next host top-flight football on March 2, when Melbourne Victory host Newcastle Jets.

The Victory have played matches in Geelong for the past five years after abandoning a foray into Tasmania; memorably beating Atletico Madrid in a preseason friendly and qualifying for the Asian Champions League there on previous visits.

Chief executive Trent Jacobs said the club didn't want to leave Geelong simply because Western Melbourne had arrived.

"We're going into our 15th year next year. We've built a mature fan base [and] we recognise that some of that is down in Geelong," he said.

Jacobs said the club's intention was to continue to host A-League matches at GMHBA Stadium, though they were awaiting details on next season's fixture from FFA.

Brown said Victory were welcome tenants.

"What I've seen from Victory and Trent is they are committed to long term building a relationship here ... that's the sort of stuff we want to see," he said.