Wellington Phoenix will play a glamorous pre-season soccer match against Argentina club giants Boca Juniors.
The New Zealand A-League club announced the match to The Dominion Post newspaper, believing the July 23 encounter in Wellington will be financially viable.
Club chief executive Tony Pignata said the match would be underwritten
by a Singapore-based sports media company, making it a safe bet to host their second big overseas club in three years. In 2007 they staged a match against a Los Angeles Galaxy side who included England midfielder David Beckham.
Pignata said an undisclosed match fee plus a share of any profits left him comfortable with hosting one of South America's most famous teams.
"It's a good earner for the club," Pignata said.
"We will basically run the event for them, with marketing and booking the stadium, but they are underwriting the whole thing.
"Commercially it made sense. I've always maintained we'd only look at these sort of games if it was commercially viable, and it is."
Boca Juniors are scheduled to play Melbourne Victory in Melbourne earlier and end a world tour against Liverpool in England.
The current side includes veteran Argentina midfielder Juan Roman Riquelme and their World Cup squad striker Martin Palermo.
Their most famous former player is Argentina great Maradona, the current national coach, who played two years for Boca in the early 1980s.
- NZPA
