Virtus Soccer Club is confident the bid to move its competition headquarters to the Senate Road sport complex can be achieved.

The council last Wednesday backed the setting up of a Port Pirie Regional Soccer Association facility at the complex.

Councillors asked for management to prepare a report on how to jointly go ahead with the club with its proposal.

The club outlined some of the benefits of the proposal at the November meeting. These would include:

*Port Pirie soccer to be played in one location

*Attracting country and State championships twice a year with central access to businesses

*A community venue that can host senior State soccer, cricket and junior soccer

*More opportunity for soccer, given the “significant growth” in the sport

*Opportunity to promote the venue to attract demonstration games for both State and nat-ional teams

The club is asking for in-kind support from the Port Pirie Regional Council, a long-term agreement for use of the facilities and to use land next to the complex for parking.

But council chief executive officer Dr Andrew Johnson told the meeting on Wednesday, attended by club representatives, that there were still “more questions without answers than answers” due to it still being in an early stage.

Chairman Tory Annese said the club was excited and happy that council had backe3d its proposal in principle. He said this would enable them to move into the planning and project stage.

“We look forward to working with council on how the new project can be progressed,” he said.

“It will create a soccer hub in Port Pirie and the new facilities will benefit junior soccer players in the town and area.

“We look forward to working with other sporting organisations to establish this multi-purpose facility.”

He said the project would cost an estimated $1 million with the club prepared to contribute $250,000 and they hope the rest of the money will come from a combination of grants. “We have the full backing of the Football Federation of South Australia,” he said.