Sharpless was ushered in as the Lions chairman last October after a bitter boardroom stoush saw the demise of former head Angus Johnson.
He is part of a five-member board that includes AFL legend Leigh Matthews and was introduced as a speciality director to help navigate the Lions through a proposed $60 million training and administration centre at Springfield, in Brisbane's west.
Springfield Land Corp is on a Heads of Agreement for the site's development with the Ipswich City Council, Lions and AFL.
However, the project continues to prove troublesome, and Sharpless is stuck in the middle.
One quarter of the funding ($15 million) was promised by the former ALP federal government, which has now been withdrawn since the Coalition swept to power last September.
Sharpless said the new government would take submissions for grants next year and he was confident the Lions would get the funding they required. It would just take extra time.
He was quoted in a News Limited story on Tuesday saying it could even host premiership matches one day – far beyond the original proposition for pre-season matches only.
Sharpless denied a conflict of interest, saying he had gone out of his way to keep the roles independent.
"The CEO (Malcolm Holmes) of the club does the negotiations with the Ipswich City Council," he said.
"The council owns the land, they'll be the landlord to the club.
"The Springfield (Land Corp) involvement is that we agreed to transfer commercial development rights from the land we had, on to the council land.
"There's no commercial benefit whatsoever to the Springfield Land Corporation.
"Quite the opposite, we've actually given up commercial benefits … for the benefit of the council and the Brisbane Lions Football Club."
Sharpless said he and fellow director Mick Power, who also has commercial interests in the area with his company BMD, abstained from any boardroom votes on the development.
The Lions have a lease with the Gabba until 2015 and Sharpless said that's where they would continue playing.
"There is no plan for the Lions to play anywhere other than the Gabba," he said.
"It (playing matches at Springfield) won't happen in my lifetime. But with the infrastructure and planning in this area, and the population growth, in my view you could never totally discount what could happen well into the future.
"Twenty years ago they said they'd never get a railway line to Springfield, and now there's one here."
Sharpless said the Ipswich Council had suggested the current agreement be extended for 12 months while they go about trying to source the extra federal government funding.
This will be one item discussed at Wednesday's board meeting.
"I think the project is very high quality and I think will be considered worthy of federal government funding," he said.
Twitter: @AFL_mikewhiting
