A new sports franchise is coming to Auckland.<\/p>\n
The long awaited entry of an Auckland A-Legaue team was officially confirmed today with a full A-League licence granted to American billionaire Bill Foley<\/p>\n
Foley will enter a team in the 2024 -League season, based in Auckland.<\/p>\n
It’s been 17 years since the city had a side in the Australian League, with the Football Kingz from 1999-2004 and the New Zealand Knights 2004-2007.<\/p>\n
Bill Foley is a sports fanatic.<\/p>\n
He owns Bournemouth in the EPL and started the Las Vegas Black Knights in 2017, who won the Stanley Cup last year.<\/p>\n
Foley made his first investments in New Zealand in 2008 and his companies currently employ more than 500 Kiwis across the country.<\/p>\n
“It’s an honour to bring a top football club to Auckland,” Foley said.<\/p>\n
“Building a championship team from expansion has been my most exhilarating professional achievement, and I aim to do the same for the fans of New Zealand and particularly the community in the Northern region. It’s a special place and an area that I know will embrace this team.”<\/p>\n
In addition to financing the new club Foley has committed to provide the investment and resources necessary to quickly build a competitive environment.<\/p>\n
Foley has hired Auckland native Nick Becker as the new club’s Chief Executive Officer, leading the business endeavours, and will announce football leadership in the near future.<\/p>\n
The name of the franchise is yet to be announced, but Foley did offer a bit of a clue.<\/p>\n
“We really go through a process, and we have to make sure that whatever name we pick is going to represent New Zealand and Auckland. I have a special name I like because my alma mater are the Black Knights and black is a strong, strong statement in New Zealand. but we have a lot of other ideas on names, so it will take us a process.”<\/p>\n
As well as a mens team, the franchise will field a womens team in the 2025-26 A-League Womens competition.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A new sports franchise is coming to Auckland. The long awaited entry of an Auckland A-Legaue team was officially confirmed today with a full A-League licence granted to American billionaire Bill Foley Foley will enter a team in the 2024 -League season, based in Auckland. It’s been 17 years since the city had a side […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":8430,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8426","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8426","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8426"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8426\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8428,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8426\/revisions\/8428"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8430"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}