Melbourne Victory chairman Geoff Lord has warned the AFL to abandon its planned expansion into rugby league's western Sydney heartland.

Lord, who was president of AFL club Hawthorn for three years in the mid 1990s, was speaking on the day the AFL sent Kevin Sheedy on a spruiking exercise to Blacktown, the training base of the proposed western Sydney franchise.

The region is also in the running to host a new A-League team when the competition is expanded to 12 teams in the next few years.

"It's a personal opinion ... there's no way that (the AFL) should go to west Sydney, I think the battle is too hard to win," Lord said on Monday at a function to announce gaming company Intralot Australia as the Victory's new A-League principal sponsor.

"The (NRL) are so well entrenched that it makes it very difficult.

"But I think there is a huge sympathy and support base for soccer in that region."

The A-League will grow to 10 teams for the upcoming season with the inclusion of Gold Coast United and North Queensland Fury.

The next phase of soccer expansion is likely to involve a second team in Melbourne and another franchise in NSW or the ACT, with western Sydney, Wollongong and Canberra having expressed interest.

"No A-League club wants to see an uneven number of sides enter the competition and we do need to see balance and economics as important to make sure that all clubs have a viable base," said Lord.

"So while we've accepted nine and 10 (teams) with open arms, 11 and 12 need to be thought through to make such there's a proper base and a proper justification for the work that has been done."

Since being dumped by Essendon as coach in 2007 after a 27-year career including four premierships, Sheedy has been employed in an ambassadorial role by the AFL.

Visiting western Sydney on Monday, he was handed a black "I love Blacktown" t-shirt by Blacktown City Mayor Charlie Lowles and then declared an AFL team could put the region on the map.

"There is 2.5 million people in this area. What is that? Adelaide and Perth (combined)," said Sheedy.

"We should have been here 25 years ago but we just weren't in that region to be able to do that.

"I think the AFL is better placed now to do that.

"We are making not a courageous decision but a commonsense decision."

AFL Commissioner Sam Mostyn said the current economic climate would not deter the AFL from pushing ahead with its western Sydney plans, a year after the Gold Coast enters the competition in 2011.

"Circumstances change but we are not going to be stupid," she said.

"But all the signs are in the partnerships that we have with the local council, the state government in developing ideas around infrastructure.

"We are pretty confident this will be a great great opportunity for AFL in NSW."

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