ADELAIDE United chairman Greg Griffin is optimistic the sale of the club will be the catalyst for increased investment in the game in Australia.

And he is hopeful the new owner, Dutchman Piet van der Pol, will have the capacity to inject more funds in the football department at the A-League club.

“The sale is a positive for the fans to the extent they bring in additional capital,” Griffin told radio FIVEaa.

“We spent $4.2m on football this season so it is not as though our consortium did not invest heavily.

“But what we never did was spend the six, seven, 10 million dollars that Sydney, Melbourne City regularly do.

“Hopefully the new owner opens the cheque book and brings in a very talented Dutch footballer perhaps. That would be great for the fans.”

President of China’s Qingdao Reds Lions, van der Pol is believed to have paid $12m to own United and the sale was ratified by Football Federation Australia on Wednesday.

Griffin used the interview to criticise state government support, claiming at least people from overseas recognised the benefit of doing so.

“The new owners need to sit down with whichever party wins the election and get a decent deal because the stadium deal is unfair,” Griffin said.

“The complete lack of support from the Labor Government for Adelaide United over the past eight and a half years has been dreadful.

“They should give more to football than just building pitches in marginal seats.”

Griffin said he would cease his involvement with United, saying the new owners deserved clean air and were entitled to impose their own thoughts and processes on the club.

Asked for his thoughts on a new stadium, Griffin said the two prime locations were the par 3 golf course at North Adelaide or beside Adelaide Oval.

He said he had put the Adelaide Oval option to South Australian Sports Minister Leon Bignell, only to be told it was not possible because if the state was to host a Commonwealth Games there would be no warm up track.

Griffin also predicted an A-League independent of the FFA within 18 months and believes the league will grow to 16 teams inside five years.

However, the State Opposition has poured cold water on social media speculation that the Liberals were poised to announce a plan to bring soccer into the city.

“We are very aware that they (Adelaide United’s former owners) have an interest in having an inner city soccer stadium, but it’s not something that we will be advancing at this election,” Opposition Leader Steven Marshall said. “It’s not on our agenda.

“We are not announcing anything to do with a new inner-city soccer stadium.”