THE AFL is seeking to woo migrant groups and form an alliance with the University of Western Sydney as it gears up for its biggest ever challenge — installing a viable team in the heart of enemy territory.

It has also emerged that those preparing the new Western Sydney franchise will ask for changes to the NSW scholarship scheme, aimed at ensuring rival clubs do not cherry pick the best available local talent before the new franchise can capture it.

Less than a week after it was reported that the league was considering a proposal to create an Irish-aligned club — known as the Celtics — that idea has been effectively abandoned. AFL NSW general manager Dale Holmes said yesterday the new franchise would be broad-based and would attempt to win new supporters currently unaligned to rival codes.

Holmes said that building the new club would be the most difficult task ever undertaken by the league. The AFL is targeting just 5000-10,000 members for the club's early years. The current minimum benchmark for membership — the Swans' 20,000 — could take the new club 25 years to achieve.

"Our aspiration is to get to 20,000 members in a generation — the same as the Swans, 25 years in the market," Holmes said.

Initially, fans will be sought through "partnerships", including alignment with the university, which has six campuses and almost 40,000 students in the area.

"They are already doing some consumer research work for us," Holmes said of the university. "But they also have 37,000 students, which is a potential audience for us to tap into … The Bulldogs do this with Victoria University and we are looking at a similar relationship. It might also be sports science, marketing, consumer research and fan development."

One resource the AFL is keen to tap is the Australian College of Physical Education — part of the university and based at Homebush. Students from the school could be used in game-day roles such as trainers and conditioning staff by the new club.

Other fans would be found by forming special relationships with local businesses — seeking sponsorship but also accessing large numbers of employees who will be offered inducements to come and try the new club.

At a lunch yesterday in Sydney's north-west, league boss Andrew Demetriou wooed local powerbrokers, including the vice-chancellor of the university and heads of the business parks.

A test of the idea will be run using employees of the Blacktown Council — a strong supporter of the new team and home to the $27 million, 10,000-seat stadium that will be its base. All 1500 council employees will be offered a $20 family pass to four Swans matches at ANZ Stadium next year. For the price Victorian fans pay for a single adult ticket, western Sydneysiders can take the family to four games.

"The AFL is really gazumping the other codes with this sort of thing," said Blacktown Mayor Leo Kelly. "The whole breadth of western Sydney has more people living in it than there are in the state of South Australia. This can't fail."

The Swans are unlikely to be happy with the deep discounting and free tickets to lure fans to Western Sydney games. If free or ultra-cheap tickets are available, why pay full price to watch the Swans?

Already, eight AFL staff are based in Blacktown. Within months it will be around 20. Board members for the new team's organising committee will be found this year, name and colours decided next year and the side playing in the AFL in 2012.

Holmes said the identity of the new team would be driven by market research currently being carried out. "The principle will be that the community provide the feedback in terms of the image and brand." A public naming competition — similar to that being run on the Gold Coast — is part of the plan.

Some market research has already been done by the AFL. It shows that people in the western suburbs are hungry for "family entertainment" that is easy to get to. It also shows they are far more interested in V8 Supercars and rugby league than AFL.

The new club will highlight "family entertainment", portraying the sport as safe, fun, easy to get to and affordable. AFL staff are also targeting the ethnic communities in the area. "There is an opportunity for us to work closely with some multicultural communities and we'll be doing that," Holmes said.

One of the western Sydney group's first appointments — to be made soon — will be a talent scout, charged with identifying potential players for the new club. A group formed by Holmes will meet next week to finalise a draft paper to put to the AFL and clubs about the concessions needed to build a new list.

Crucial to that will be changes to the scholarship scheme. Currently, each club can sign up to six 15-year-old project players from an area ranging between Wollongong and Broken Hill. Southern NSW and the ACT are not included. "We are very keen to see that program continue," Holmes said.

"However, it's important we create a competitive list." The draft paper will push for expansion of the zone, changes to the age at which they can be signed and exclusive access to areas for the new team.

There is also a sense developing that the enthusiasm of some club leaders for the league's Sydney expansion may be waning as economic conditions toughen and clubs begin to realise the scale of investment needed.

Eddie McGuire and Richmond's Gary March expressed concern this week. One club source said yesterday: "I'm not convinced they really know how much this is going to cost or how hard it is going to be."

Another said: "There is a real danger we could all get bogged down in this."

Professor David Rowe, a sport and culture expert from the University of Western Sydney, said although the AFL was scared of "missing the boat" in the area consistently identified as Australia's fastest growing, Sydney remained the nation's toughest sporting market.

"Supporting a team is a deep kinship and it's very difficult to just create that bond," he said.

"If you can't create a partisan fan base you can just forget it."

Holmes said the Celtics idea was "extremely dumb" and the Swans' experience was that their fan base was predominantly middle class and professional, with large numbers of women. He said the west may be the demographic heart of Sydney, "but is it the heart of AFL support? I'd say that is very questionable."