THE AFL kept the pressure on the Kangaroos yesterday in its bid to persuade the club to make a move to the Gold Coast.

After giving the cash-strapped club a 30-day deadline to reach a decision at a meeting on Wednesday, the league's chief broadcasting and commercial officer Gill McLachlan held a news conference yesterday and chief executive Andrew Demetriou conducted a radio interview that made it clear that the AFL was keeping the Roos afloat.

While insisting that continued AFL assistance to the Kangaroos was not subject to any relocation, and that the decision was the club's to make, McLachlan made the league's position on the Roos' future clear.

"We think there is a compelling proposition for the Kangaroos to go to the Gold Coast, given the support we'd be offering, the growth of that market and arrangements put in place," he said. "(But) if the board decides they want to stay in Melbourne, that's absolutely their decision."

McLachlan said Queensland was "a growth market" for the AFL. "We look on that as somewhere we want to have a future and we'd like to have an AFL team. We'd like a team to be based there. We think it makes sense for the Kangaroos to go there but, ultimately, it has to make sense to their board."

Demetriou told Southern Cross Radio that "the AFL contributes seven dollars out of every $10 of net revenue that the Kangaroos are receiving". "That's 70 per cent — and it's not enough.

"We can only do what we can do but there comes a point in time that if what we're putting in at the moment is not enough and that continues to grow, the other clubs will not support that. From a financial perspective, their debt's growing and they're not going forwards."

An Age investigation in March this year revealed that the Kangaroos were 14th of the 16 AFL clubs in terms of net football expenditure. The Kangaroos also ranked poorly on other measures, being 14th for assets and revenue and 15th on the profit/loss table. The 2007 figures, to be available early next year and published with the annual report, are expected to show a similar picture.

The Kangaroos also ranked 15th of the 16 clubs on the 2007 membership figures released by the AFL in the middle of this year.

Of the club's 22,366 members, less than 1800 live on the Gold Coast, where the club played three home games this year. The peak figure for the ACT, where a similar deal operated until this year, was just over 1500.

McLachlan said the 30-day deadline was not an ultimatum. "It's something we negotiated and agreed with them. The Kangaroos and their supporters need certainty, as does the AFL. We've been talking about this for a long time. We agreed, with the Kangaroos, that 30 days was enough for the club and the AFL to make a decision."

McLachlan said if the Roos once again opted to stay in Melbourne, then the AFL would move forward with the creation of a 17th club to be based full-time in one of Australia's fastest-growing areas.

"We're serious about this region," McLachlan said.

"It's a growing region, it'll be the third largest television market in a couple of years, it'll be a million people by 2015-2020. It's worthy of a team full-time up there and it needs a team committed to that region and based out of that region.

"I think the rationale for a team on the Gold Coast makes sense. It think the clubs understand why that's a growth priority for us and we'd engage them in a process and … we're comfortable that we'd have the support of the clubs."