The former AFL NSW/ACT general manager was announced as the new club’s off-field boss by chairman Tony Shepherd on Wednesday.
While Gold Coast, which is set to debut in 2011, has targeted a playing base at Carrara from the infancy, there is no such certainty about Team GWS’s on-field home.
“We would prefer to play our games in a boutique stadium, for want of a better word, something around the 25,000-seat [mark],” Holmes said.
“We don’t think it makes a whole lot of sense to build a new stadium and there already is existing infrastructure in western Sydney.
“Blacktown Olympic Park is an option, the Showgrounds [at Homebush] is an option, ANZ Stadium is an option, obviously for the larger games.”
The deadline for having a completed stadium was no sooner than round one, 2012 but Holmes expected plans would be in place by August.
Details such as the team name and its brand will be released in the third quarter of this year, after Team GWS submits its business case and financial plan to the League by the end of June.
Holmes hoped the club would be granted a license to compete in the AFL in 2012 at that stage.
In the meantime, the new club will aim to build a training and administration centre at Blacktown Olympic Park that was “the rival of anything in the AFL”, Holmes said.
It was at that venue in mid-February, when the Sydney Swans hosted Carlton in a sold-out NAB Cup clash, that Holmes said he was finally convinced put his hat in the ring.
“My wife actually said to me, ‘so you’re ready to give up the baby, are you?’ and it actually registered with me on that night that no, I probably wasn’t ready to give up the baby and I really wanted to be part of this.
“If I wasn’t going to be part of it, I’d probably get in the road and become a pest for Tony and the new CEO.”
“From that point of view, it made sense to keep the continuity of the project.”
