An announcement at the end of this week will officially rubber-stamp Athletic as the successful entry, as well as reveal the club’s colours as green and black.

Four potential names were proposed to fans in an extensive survey conducted by News Ltd across Victoria, with participants also given the option of adding their own to the mix.

And it appears a hybrid has won out, with fans of the fledgling franchise opting to adopt the proposal of Western Melbourne Athletic - minus the word Melbourne.

With the club’s eventual new stadium to be situated at Tarneit - 30km from Melbourne’s CBD - the over-riding sentiment from followers of the new entity was that the team will be outside the umbrella of Melbourne and it’s name should not necessarily be synonymous with the city.

Western United FC, Westside Pride FC and Western Melbourne Warriors FC were also on the list but none appear to have struck a chord.

The pieces of the puzzle are quickly falling into place for the team which will initially be based at Geelong’s Kardinia Park when they enter the fray next season.

They have Greece international Panagiotis Kone in the bag as their marquee, with Wellington Phoenix’s Mark Rudan soon to be announced as head coach, assuming he can engineer an exit from the second year of his contract across the ditch.

Western Sydney Wanderers’ Josh Risdon has also agreed terms, with the Socceroo out of contract at Wanderland and looking for a new challenge.

The club have also been heavily linked with Melbourne City’s off-contract midfielder Luke Brattan as well as Wellington’s English defender Stephen Taylor.

Phoenix CEO David Dome declined to comment when contacted by The World Game on Monday over the future of Rudan, whose stocks have soared since taking charge of the serial under-performers.