Sydney is way too lucky when it comes to public funding for football stadiums

To this end, any upgrade of existing stadiums can help serve the many needs of Sydney's many rectangle football codes of football, rugby league and rugby union, along with the growing female versions of such sports.

But the bickering for public funding continues on a scale that suggests that Sydney is some sort of great world city for football crowds, which it is clearly not besides the large crowds it gets for a few rugby league and major football and rugby union internationals each year.

The NRL want hundreds of millions to be spent on suburban NRL grounds, while Football Australia and rugby union officials want the Olympic Stadium to be upgraded with better seating and/or a roof to help secure major sporting event finals such as the Rugby World Cup.

But does mild Sydney really need a roof for the odd day when a football match confronts hard rain?

Does Sydney really need further new stadiums for a few NRL clubs where moderate spending can easily upgrade pretty good existing stadiums to enhance the NRL's thinking of gaining local support, then make it local or at distance where many can easily get to?

Souths could, and are likely to, play at the new Sydney Football Stadium.

St George Illawarra and Cronulla have decent home grounds with around 20,000 capacity.

Canterbury, rather than get a brand new stadium at Liverpool, may be able to upgrade Belmore to get a decent stadium in line with a 2020 discussion that a 25,000-seat stadium there was a possibility.

The same would be true of Manly's Brookvale, which probably needs a significant upgrade most.

The odd big games that may demand bigger crowds could be shifted to Sydney's four larger stadiums that can host crowds of 30,000 to 82,500 as they do in England with regard to the odd rugby code match that generates a large club crowd, namely Old Trafford, Wembley and Twickenham.

Ultimately Sydney's NRL clubs have to build community support if they truly want to get bigger regular crowds that can then justify greater capacity facilities.

For the Wests Tigers, with their $6 million decade-long agreement to play at the Olympic Stadium ending after the 2023 season, they have recently indicated a preference to play their home games at their spiritual homes of Leichhardt and Campbelltown to permanently base themselves in suburbia and establish a clear identity.