"What the process has shown is there is great interest around the country in being involved in our flagship domestic competition with the standard of the applications very high," New Zealand Football community director Cam Mitchell said."The applicants all made solid cases for inclusion with Eastern Suburbs and Tasman standing out above the rest at this point in time."
To maintain the pathway in the Waikato region and having met the required criteria, Hamilton Wanderers have been passed the license held by WaiBOP United. Eastern Suburbs and Tasman United presented the strongest cases for the remaining two places after priority was given to the existing sides in the competition.
Eastern Suburbs is one of the country's biggest and most successful clubs and won this year's Chatham Cup, the sixth time they had won this country's premier knockout competition.
"We're very pleased," Eastern Suburbs chairman Chris Ruffell said. "We put a lot of work into our application and we were reasonably confident.
"If I was on a selection panel, performance on the field would obviously be right up there because we want the strongest national league possible. As a club we won the Northern League this year and we won the Chatham Cup. Arguably you could say we're the best club team in the country. On the other side, financially I'd be surprised if a stronger bid came in."
Five areas of operation were assessed - facilities, administration and governance, football structure, on-field performance and finance - by a panel made up by former national league coach Roger Wilkinson, former NZF board member and national league player Dougal McGowan, former referee Peter O'Leary and former Football Fern, Women's National League coach and PFA member Kristy Hill.
"In learning from the history of the various national league competitions New Zealand Football has operated, our key objective through this process was to identify the most progressive and sustainable entities," Mitchell said.
"In making our decision, we feel we have achieved that goal with all three of the new clubs demonstrating they are capable of producing a top quality experience on and off the field of play, not only for the first season, but into the future as well."
ASB Premiership 2016-17: Auckland City, Canterbury United, Eastern Suburbs, Hamilton Wanderers, Hawke's Bay United, Southern United, Tasman United, Team Wellington, Waitakere United, Wellington Phoenix.
