Sydney FC - Values and Partnerships

The Cove
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A genuine question, as fans do you think it’s appropriate and reflective of our values, responsibilities and inclusive culture as a club to:

  1. Take funding for the 4th year in a row, from a company that has been referred to the ICAC on allegations of corruption on three separate occasions.

  2. Enlist the help of a former criminal and now content creator to promote the club, who is on the record saying: “I’m fucking sick of this fucking perverted, putrid shit, like a bunch of deadset pedophiles hiding behind some fucking gay pride – whatever the fuck youse are doing.” about World Pride and shortly after the club launched their Pride Membership.

  3. Let’s not mention The Star partnership, a company rife with money laundering, fraud and criminal activity as they are no longer a sponsor.

It raises the question what kind of due diligence is the board doing to ensure our club isn’t associated with such individuals and organisations?

Surely, there are far more reputable, honest, and forward-thinking partners we could be working with instead.

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I’m going to take a leaf out of your book and send you some links. These clubs in our fine city have never, EVER hired people of questionable character. At all.

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  1. Been referred to but has anything been proven?
  2. Made independently by one of the largest YouTube star in the country, who openly says he says what he needs to to be noticed, and doesn’t always believe it
  3. As you say, no longer a sponsor
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This I 100% don’t agree with. If he’s saying shit for the sake of saying it, then that’s even worse than believing in it. I would maybe suggest with Spanian, they saw a huge uptick in views, followed by management being informed who he was without checking it thoroughly enough. While it’s not an amazing look, it points to the age of our management more than anything else.

In terms of rightdirections other points, in all honesty, what are you expecting SFC to do? I could see your point if we were knocking back sponsors left right and centre, but I dare say, there’s really not that many companies interested in sponsoring a league, especially when everyone is talking austerity. It’s easy for us to sit here, spending a few hundred in membership tickets, complaining about sponsors. Our owners are spending millions in keeping the club going with very little return.

There’s two options to combat this, we go down the Newcastle or CCM route, where we cut back all spending and meet the cap floor. Or we get bought out by another millionaire who I can almost guarantee will have some VERY questionable business practices, probably worse than The Star or anyone else.

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Spanian is spiritually a Wanderers fan. I saw it when I gazed into my crystal orb. Perhaps we can rehabilitate him

And yeah I reckon we should be suspect or companies looked into by ICAC. We should go back to our original strategy of Russian oligarchs.

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Hope you remembered to monetise them clicks.

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Fuck. I knew I forgot something!

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Don’t forget being funded by a Russian oligarch.

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As far as we know he was just a banking/finance guy!

He also walked away to ensure we weren’t subject to any sanctions, what a good dude!

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Parramatta Eels just re-signed a front of Jersey sponsorship with James Hardie.

We’re doing fine.

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The Spaniard is the only one that I wouldn’t feel comfortable about the club promoting, but he did it independently right, so that’s fine by me. Anyone can support our club, but it’s up to the club who they endorse.

I never had a problem with The Star sponsoring us, it looked alright as a front of shirt sponsor.

Don’t know about that ICAC case, but if nothing is proven then I’m fine with it, plus it’s really on the low scale of things to get worried about in terms of club sponsorship.

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What itches me about it (and rightdirection posted the link) he was then personally visited by the SFC head of marketing and given a jersey.

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Doesn’t Douglas Costa have something like 10 million followers on Instagram?
I don’t think the club needs to be entertaining a homophobic neanderthal for the clicks.

As for where the club gets its money from, I don’t think there are too many business out there with a clean slate. Isn’t the Kennards guy of dubious character as well?
I draw the line at where the people handing over the money try to influence the club’s social responsibilities or if the money is obtained through illegal means to begin with.

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He has 10,000,000 but would suggest there wouldn’t be a huge proportion of them in Sydney. The club is trying to get new younger supporters through the door, which is why they’re talking to influencers like Spanian, but assuming they’re not sitting there trawling through a whole load of his clips.

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I suppose it is time for me to type at least a semi-mature post.

I was not that comfortable when we had The Star sponsorship, or when Mark Latham was being put up on the club’s socials. But it is a personal opinion, and just like in any friendship or relationship, you’re not always going to agree on some things the club do, small or large.

Ultimately, having started following Sydney FC in the first season of the league, and seen all the peaks and troughs of the club since then, it will only take a seriously extreme situation for me to think twice about supporting the club. And I don’t see the club hitting such an extreme.

I can also disagree with the club without trying to profit off it.

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They make other building materials other than asbestos…

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It’s not the making of asbestos that makes them evil.
It was the way they treated the victims and tried to deny any culpability.

The ABC journalist who relentlessly pursued them died yesterday. Without him I wonder if they ever would have been brought to justice.

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  1. I have no issue with them. Sure they got dragged to ICAC however there has been no adverse findings ever made against them by ICAC and their standard of proof is a lot lower than a criminal courts one.

  2. He seems like every other influencer to be fair. A stain on society as it is today and shouldn’t be given oxygen. I agree with others on here that the media manager definitely should not be hand delivering him stuff too, regardless of how close he was to the Ronaldinho thing.

  3. I had no issue with The Star being a sponsor. People love to get up in arms about gambling sponsorships (yet let it slide if it comes to pokies funding their favoured NPL sides) but I can say, conservatively, I have been to The Star over 50 times and probably gambled around 5 times all up. You don’t have to gamble when you go there. Plus, the logo looked shmick on the front of the shirt in my opinion.

Football in Australia already runs at a loss and now you want to nit-pick every single sponsor or person giving publicity?

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Ah I see, maybe they also didn’t really know who he was. Like me I had never heard of him until after the derby