The organisation has received resource consent for the plan, and Football South chief executive Chris Wright said building the $3 million project could begin early next year.
In May, the Dunedin City Council provided $1 million for the project, and a month later the Otago Community Trust gave $600,000, one of its larger recent donations.
The new pitches in Dunedin will be built on fields bordered by Union St East and Logan Park Dr, next to the already upgraded changing rooms. Intended as a multi-use facility, it would include one field with football markings, one with both football and rugby, as well as an artificial cricket wicket in the middle. It could also be used for recreation by the general public. The project has already attracted $425,000 from the Fifa Forward programme. Mr Wright said the consent was "usual for this sort of project".
"There’s nothing really surprising in there.
"We’re quite happy with the consent coming through, so we can get on with the project."
Mr Wright said his organisation was still waiting on the results of funding applications for the rest of the money required.
"We’ve got a couple of applications we won’t know the result on until early December.
"If we get the results we’re hoping for, we’ll be in a good position to get the spade into the ground in the first quarter of next year.
Mr Wright said he believed the project would benefit "a huge number of people", and was reasonably confident the funding sought would be provided.
"The feedback we’ve had is that it fits all the right criteria and it’s seen positively by the funders, but you never know, because there’s so many competing priorities in New Zealand.
"We don’t want to count on anything until we’ve got it."
