And there would have been high-tech curtains capable of converting a 55,000-seat stadium into a more intimate 30,000-seat setting for club rugby league games. The "Field Terrace" corporate viewing area at ground level at the proposed and ill-fated "National Stadium" at Moore Park. Fairfax Media has obtained the sales pitch for the $1 billion rectangular football stadium planned for Moore Park, dubbed "National Football Stadium" by architects working for the Sydney Cricket & Sports Ground Trust. The pitch markets the stadium as the best in the world, and it surely would have been a great place to watch football. But that stadium is destined to remain in picture form only, following a farcical and confusing process in which the trust and Sports Minister Stuart Ayres pushed to build the stadium on land they did not control.

In the documents obtained by Fairfax Media, the "National Football Stadium" is depicted on land currently occupied by Kippax Lake. The documents say the stadium on the park is for "illustration purposes only" and the stadium's location is not determined. But the placement of the new stadium on top of Kippax Lake goes to the heart of the debacle over stadium funding, and why the SCG Trust and Mr Ayres were ultimately left empty-handed. When Premier Mike Baird's cabinet decided in September it would spend $1.6 billion on new stadium infrastructure, it determined any new stadium at Moore Park would need to be on land controlled by the SCG Trust.

As the documents show, however, the SCG Trust continued to provision for a stadium on Kippax Lake – on land controlled by the neighbouring Centennial Park and Moore Park Trust. The documents obtained by Fairfax Media using freedom of information laws were presented to sporting teams and codes in the last frantic weeks of lobbying in March before Mr Baird's government decided the allocation of funding. And even as the teams and codes were impressed by the design of the stadium by architects Populous, the location would be its undoing. Mr Baird insisted the stadium needed to be on SCG Trust land. Faced with the prospect of losing their home ground of Allianz Stadium for three years while a replacement was built on its footprint, the Roosters, Waratahs and Sydney FC revolted, scuppering plans for a $1 billion stadium in the area.

After Mr Ayres failed to secure the support of Sydney's sporting codes for the stadium, Mr Baird intervened and directed the bulk of the $1.6 billion in funding to a refurbishment of ANZ Stadium at Sydney Olympic Park. As well as confirming the SCG Trust's designs for a stadium on Centennial Park land, the documents also demonstrate the trust's long-standing hopes for underground car parking in the area. The documents propose underground car parking at Moore Park west, across Anzac Parade. This is also under land the SCG Trust does not manage. But the proposal for underground parking at Moore Park west helps explain the $38 million Albert "Tibby" Cotter Walkway, which would direct patrons straight to the new stadium, but is currently rarely used. When former premier Barry O'Farrell insisted on the construction of the walkway, built with money reallocated from other road projects, locals claimed the project made sense only if a car park was built on the other side of the walkway.

The documents show the existing Allianz Stadium would have been replaced with open space, with the potential for car parking underneath.