A meeting at the end of July will help determine how close the long-held dream of an A-League second division is to becoming a reality.
The Association of Australian Football Clubs has submitted new detailed financial modelling to Football Federation Australia and the working group tasked with assessing the viability of a national second tier.
The working group -- which consists of the AAFC, FFA executives, the A-League clubs, state federations and Professional Footballers Australia -- is due to workshop the latest round of numbers on July 26.
Formed last year to lobby for the interests of state-league clubs, the AAFC rolled out its own blueprint for a second division competition, dubbed "The Championship," in October.
Their plans were initially met with a cold shoulder by FFA but the formation of the working group, which has only met once before, suggests all parties are now on the same page when it comes to a second tier -- even if discussions are still in their infancy.
The big question remains whether it can stack up financially.
AAFC had proposed a $2.5 million budget for each club and claimed it could get The Championship up and running without any additional funding from FFA.
But the PFA's own modelling suggested clubs would need more than double that amount in a fully-professional second division, plus league operating costs of $10-$12 million.
How the two contrasting positions can be reconciled remains to be seen but AAFC chairman Rabieh Krayem said it was a victory that the conversation was even happening in the first place.
"If someone said 12 months ago that we would get all these stakeholders in one room working on the second division, I reckon I could have got 100-1 [odds] pretty easily," Krayem told AAP.
"I don't think there's anyone out there now objecting to a second division.
"The big thing now is to make sure we end up with a model and the numbers stack up for it, and we've always been confident that it would."
AAFC had set an ambitious 2019 start date for The Championship but Krayem wouldn't be drawn on when a second division might commence.
The new financial model was put together by AAFC with the aid of the Nous Group, the consultancy firm which it had earmarked to assess applications from clubs to join the competition.