After an eight-year wait, A-League play is officially returning to Launceston.
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As revealed in The Examiner in December, second-year A-League club Western United will play two home-and-away fixtures at UTAS Stadium for this season and next.
The matches will be the first played at the venue since Melbourne Victory home clashes in 2012 and 2013, finally playing for points after seven pre-season friendlies dating back to 2006.
The partnership with Western United will also see a women's exhibition match between a Tasmanian representative team and Calder United Soccer Club, the 2019 Victorian NPLW premiers.
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United chief executive Chris Pehlivanis said while the games are being confirmed due to the league's four-week rolling fixture, the club has proposed a week-long stay in Launceston.
If agreed on, their first game would be played on April 17 and community clinics would be run throughout.
"What a great opportunity it is to head to Tassie and [form] a great partnership," he said.
"An opportunity for us to expand our brand, an opportunity for us to support Tasmania with hopefully an A-League team in the future, for us to support Tassie with their endeavours to have a couple of Women's World Cup games here.
"We want to play our role in that and help, we know that Tassie loves their professional sport and we want everyone in Tassie to come and witness live professional sport here."
He said the contract agreement, which sees $480,000 of financial support provided by the Tasmanian government, came after four months of analysis.
"We think there's a big chance for us to grow our brand and grow our presence here," he said.
"We also think there's an opportunity to tap into some of the talent that's from a grassroots level and give a real pathway into our NPL boys and girls and into our W-League and A-League teams.
"It's two-fold for us, it's not only getting fans and giving them an experience, it's also giving opportunities for young, talented kids to have a pathway into our professional teams.
"For us it's not a short term deal, we want to invest ourselves into the market, we want to work with Football Tasmania and the state government and hopefully our actions do the talking and we can expand for longer."
With 40,000 people actively participating in soccer in Tasmania, Football Tasmania chief executive Matt Bulkeley sees these games as the beginning of a pathway to a standalone A-League side and described United as crucial to the process.
He believes the much-needed crowd support will come following strong attendances at previous Tasmanian FFA Cup ties.
"We are the biggest team sport but what we do have is an issue where our most talented aspiring players do need to leave to the mainland to pursue their opportunities - in many cases as young as 14," he said.
"This will start to provide that opportunity for our talented players to be able to have opportunities locally but also in terms of an injection of interest and our people being able to see elite men and women's football in their own state can't be understated."
Western United sits 10th on the league ladder with a win, loss and draw record of 2-2-2, recently putting four goals past Macarthur FC.