4 Feb 2014

Phoenix staying at Westpac stadium, for now

5:24 am on 4 February 2014

The Wellington Phoenix have no plans to move away from Westpac Stadium.

While there has been debate around crowd numbers, along with the pros and cons of playing at Westpac Stadium, the club has no intention of moving games to another venue apart from those home games played in Auckland and Christchurch which are important commercially and enable the Club to connect with fans and sponsors around the country.

General Manager David Dome says while they're losing money playing at Westpac Stadium, they are working with the stadium on ways to turn crowd numbers around.

Dome says at this stage they have done no deal that would take them away from the stadium, but clearly if there is an alternative that made a material difference towards the club becoming self-sustaining, then they would have to look at it.

He says the speculation surrounding the Stadium is a distraction from the football.

Dome was delighted with the 18,056 crowd that watched the Phoenix beat Adelaide 2-1 at Eden Park on Saturday night but acknowledged it was helped by being a one-off game in the city, the equivalent of the Warriors playing once in Wellington this season.