Jets chief executive Lawrie McKinna believes Newcastle could become part of a wider hub, taking in the Central Coast and Sydney, for the A-League to be based to complete its season in August.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Football Federation Australia is aiming to finish the 2019-20 season, after a return to training in July, in line with predicted downgrades in COVID-19 restrictions.
The Jets beat second-placed Melbourne City 2-1 on March 23 at McDonald Jones Stadium in the last match played before the A-League was suspended because of the pandemic.
With 27 regular-season games remaining, the A-League is looking to follow the NRL in creating a hub base in NSW for teams to finish a condensed schedule of matches behind closed doors.
McKinna said preliminary plans were to complete the regular season in an 18-day window with finals to also be played inside of August.
Given the NRL's use of Sydney grounds in the same period, McKinna said McDonald Jones Stadium could host A-Leagues matches featuring teams other than the Jets.
"We don't know, because they said it could be one hub, it could be two hubs," McKinna said of early talks.
"It was very vague on Friday, but I would say that they would look at using our venue, the Central Coast's and Sydney venues as venues anyway."
Newcastle are ninth on 24 points, three points outside the top six, with four matches to play. Home matches against Wellington and Western United and away clashes with Central Coast and Sydney were part of the original draw but McKinna said that could change.
"They will not necessarily give us two home games, it will be just four games," he said.
"It could be double-headers here with us playing someone and maybe the Mariners playing someone else.
"They just want to get the outstanding league games played as soon as possible."
A new NRL draw is yet to be released, but McKinna believed there would be no problem sharing McDonald Jones Stadium with the Newcastle Knights during the hectic schedule.
McKinna was confident likely relaxation of travel restrictions would allow coaches Carl Robinson and Kenny Miller to return from overseas for training in July but he was unsure about the club's imports.
Joe Ledley and Bobby Burns have returned home but Wes Hoolahan and Abdiel Arroyo remain in Australia.
"Joe Ledley is back there now, Bobby Burns was out here on loan, so it's just if we can get them back out here for two months," he said.
"That's up in the air. But Joe only started one game and if Wes wasn't here, he only played a couple of games at the end so we are all right.
"Everybody else will be available, apart from a couple of boys at the moment. We'd be hopeful we could put a strong team out. Other teams will be in the same boat as us. Some don't have coaches here and some of their foreign players are gone."
The Jets are only three points outside the finals but their top-six rivals have games in hand.
McKinna believed Newcastle would be in good shape to make a late push.
"If you went off the last eight weeks, we'd be sitting second in the comp," he said.
"Us and Brisbane were the in-form teams but obviously everyone is going to be starting from scratch again.
"We're really happy with how the boys are going doing the self-training, so it will be really interesting how other teams have done. Some might not be as strict as others."
A-League player contracts finish at the end of May, meaning changes will need to be made to get the season on again in August.
"The PFA, FFA and the clubs will be starting talks this week, because that has to get looked at now," McKinna said.
"You could extend [contracts] or get new squads, but I would think the simplest thing is to extend by three months."