I think it depends on who the new buyer is / the interest in the license. You’ve got to think that if they get it wrong there is a real chance of the club going under as they are already approaching NZ knights level of shit.
I think it depends on who the new buyer is / the interest in the license. You’ve got to think that if they get it wrong there is a real chance of the club going under as they are already approaching NZ knights level of shit.
Bloody hell. Could end badly without an owner or with a dud. That South Melbourne $12m offer a while ago…
Hopefully they can find a buyer before it goes back to FFA because I’m not convinced FFA can afford this.
It’s good, Charlesworth was taking the club nowhere and had no desire to. If the right owner is found there is good community support for a national league team that is run well connects with locals.
Who’s buying a club that’s getting 4-5k through the gates in an area which has burned through its novelty; where the ceiling if you can get it back up and competitive is 9-11k but would cost so much $$$ year-on-year to achieve?
They’re not staying in Gosford.
Sutherland Mariners? Dandenong Mariners? South Melbourne Mariners? Brisbane Mariners?
This could well be the death of regional clubs in professional Australian football. If a club in a region of 350,000 people, which won the league and got so ingrained in the community that the manager got voted mayor, folds then what kind of path to success could you reasonably hope to achieve as an investor in Hobart, Wollongong, Canberra?
This is why we need a second division and Pro/Rel.
The status quo is $15-20m per season to be competitive or bust. For small clubs that can’t financially keep up with Sydney, Melbourne et al. that means bust.
CCM have been out of finals contention, certainly out of top-four contention (finishing 5th/6th barely matters), by the half-way point of each of the last six seasons. This has meant that the majority of their games in the last six seasons have been completely meaningless - no hope of success, no competitive pressure to not lose - and that breeds the apathy which has killed them.
Surviving relegation would give them something to play for, and a reason for people to take interest. Being relegated would give them a viable objective (getting promoted back up) the following season or few. A hierarchy gives clubs the opportunity to live within their means and have their own actual competitive objectives to aim for.
But under the status quo this was inevitable.
I sincerely hope the Mariners find a new owner to take the club more seriously and to provide appropriate funding to make them more competitive. They have a good coach but need to support him more.
Charlesworth did the right thing in the end. I’m sure bleeding money was the main reason for it but the Mariners deserve the opportunity to find the right person to take them forward.
On a separate note…
If there’s a potential investor who is serious about investing a whole lot of money to keep them on the coast, then the possibility of the license going elsewhere is surely hella good leverage to get the council to get its shit together and hand over the stadium for the benefit of the community.
Yeah Council really have to come to the table if they want to keep a club in their region.
Good summary.
Will be very hard to get investment and the FFA absolutely can’t afford it. We’re hoping for an angel investor or its relocation. Jets on struggle street financially too.
I agree with your main point about regional clubs, but not sure how you could use this to justify inclusion of a 2nd division. A division which would largely be made up of regional clubs.
I think it’s more so the fact that it makes the bottom third of the table actually meaningful. It would also allow some of the regional clubs to organically grow, rather than to have an artificial club chucked into the system and to have supporters told that they should now be supporting them. It still doesn’t solve the issue in that the major city teams will still generally dominate purely due to a large audience and greater exposure which, in turn, translates to greater income.
The biggest failing in CCM revolves around the general failing of the FFA to do any greater work in exposing the league to more people. They’ve screwed up time, after time, after time and we’re now seeing it. Even look at last year in which Newcastle were dominating (after us), that barely translated to more bums on seats. Even with international tournaments, there was no move to include the a-league or to use the international exposure to promote the game internally. The league is suffering as a whole and needs a complete turn around to stop more clubs from failing in the same way.
Yours for a cool $4mil it seems…
Figure is apparently fake news
Let’s go Canberra
Two interested buyers - a venture capitalist from Sydney and a Singaporean consortium led by Zac Anderson and Kaz Patafta.
Pretty random.
Thats a very long way to get yourself back on a football team.
This sounds really promising. I really hope that you guys stay on the Coast. Not only have you earned it but the league would miss the best away trip.
He can come play for my Over 30’s if he wants. I’ll hit Vidmar up as well