FOOTBALL Federation Tasmania is looking to cash in on the rise in women’s sport by bringing a W-League match to Hobart.

With A-League, Socceroos, and Matildas matches off the cards for the foreseeable future­, chief executive Mike Palmer said FFT would be interested in bringing down W-League games for points as soon as this coming season after signing a new deal with Melbourne City in March.

“I think there would be real value in doing that, particularly [given] our relationship with Melbourne City, a W-League game is potentially easier to attract and potentially could be played here [at KGV],” he said.

FFT’s focus moved towards promoting player development as part of its new deal with City after three years with A-League rivals Melbourne Victory, and Palmer said the nature of the arrangements were “polar opposites”.

“Melbourne Victory was all about promotion and naming rights of the competition and all of that – Melbourne City is entirely about player development,” he said.

“Through our partnership with Melbourne City we’ve shifted away from the notion of an A-League game at the moment and we want to focus on providing opportunities for Tasmanian players.”

Tasmania’s last A-League fixture for points was in January 2013 when Victory played Central Coast Mariners at Aurora Stadium, but Melbourne City has no desire to change that as it continues to build its brand and spectator base in Victoria, according to Palmer.

“They’ve said all along that they don’t wish to have their home games down here, they just want to retain those in Melbourne” he said.

He admitted a lack of A-League games may make it difficult­ to draw new fans to the sport, but said having a one-off game would not be the best use of FFT resources and isn’t something being actively worked on.

“People tend to go and watch the sport that they’re involved in and interested in and it does take a big event to get a crossover, to get people from other sports to come and watch,” he said.

“We know from experience that an A-League game would achieve that, but it needs to be sustainable. The problem in the past is there’s been sort of an ad-hoc, one-off A-League game.

“If we were going to do an A-League game we’d want the same fixture for three to five years in a row to really build on that.”