IT COULD be a Victorian-based club’s turn to travel to China and face Port Adelaide next season, with St Kilda looming as the likely option to make the trip, reports The Australian.

In Round 9, the Gold Coast Suns will face the Power at Shanghai’s Jiangwan Stadium for the second consecutive season. It will again be classified as a Suns home game, which is convenient due to the unavailability of Metricon Stadium forcing the Suns off their home ground for the first half of the season.

But The Australian reported on Wednesday morning the Suns wouldn’t continue to play the fixture in China beyond 2018, with the government reportedly keen to have a club from its state face Port in Shanghai as part of the “blueprint for the future”.

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The Australian reported the Saints are the Power’s “logical” opponent for 2019, as there’s “some certainty” no MCG tenant club — Collingwood, Hawthorn, Richmond and Melbourne — would be asked to play in China.

Of all Victorian-based clubs, the Saints are attracting the least number of fans to home games while they’re also facing a debt of over $10 million.

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The Saints pioneered an AFL push into New Zealand earlier this decade, playing games for premiership points in Wellington against Sydney (2014) and Carlton (2015).

Ideally, Port Adelaide would prefer a rival club to sign a long-term deal to play an annual game in China.

“There’s been no shortage of phone calls from other club presidents asking if they could be considered in the future,” Port Adelaide told The Australian.