Adelaide United for sale as FFA take on ownership
By Steve Larkin, 9 May 2009 Steve Larkin is a Roar Pro
Adelaide millionaire Nick Bianco says having a soccer club is like owning a racehorse: “You don’t get your money back”. Bianco handed ownership of Adelaide United to Football Federation Australia (FFA) on Friday, after pumping millions into the soccer club for the past three years.
“You do that because you love the club, and you do it like a hobby, like a racehorse – you don’t get your money back,” he said.
“It’s always costly but well worth it.”
Bianco, who has given up ownership to allow FFA for them to find a prospective buyer of the club, says there is interest in the Reds.
“There are people but it depends if the FFA are happy with it, they have got to make that decision,” he said.
Bianco, whose building supplies company has felt the global economic squeeze, didn’t want to hand the club back.
“That was the worst moment, because of financials and the economy going down,” he said.
“And also because I didn’t pay too much attention to my business which now I have too.
“My first priority, I have to get things going at work.
“As long as that gets going better, back into the soccer.
United chief executive Sam Ciccarello is confident the Reds will find a new owner with minimal disruption.
“All the fundamentals are really strong,” Ciccarello said.
“The club is a very strong organisation … it’s not an issue about the management or the fundamentals about the club, there are other circumstances at play here.
“We are just going to get on with it now.”
Adelaide United’s players and staff will not be affected, said Ciccarello, adding the FFA will approve a club budget and appoint a board “in the next month or two”.
It is a similar move to that undertaken by the FFA last month when they brought a 51 per cent stake in the struggling Brisbane (ex-Queensland) Roar club.
FFA chief executive Ben Buckley said Adelaide would have a strong A-League presence into the future.
“We are confident that a suitable new owner for the club will be found, but we are also prepared to wait for the right new owner or owners,” Buckley said in a statement.
Bianco bankrolled Adelaide’s most successful period, the club reaching the Asian Champions League final in 2008 and making the finals in three of the four A-League seasons.
They have played in two A-League grand finals, losing on both occasions to Melbourne in 2006-07 and 2008-09.
“If you got something, you have got to do it all the way, you have got to do it properly,” he said of his renowned financial generosity.
“And when you can’t, you let someone else take over … you don’t do anything halfway, it has got to be the best or nothing.”
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Kurt said | May 9th 2009 @ 8:00am | Report comment
Maybe Adelaide United fans could do one of the fan takeovers that seem to happen in the UK every now and again. I recall reading about an Internet based initiative a while back where ten thousand or so fans each put in $100 (or whatever) and then get to vote on player selections, recruitment, appointment of the coach, team make-up etc. I’m serious by the way, I think that would be a v. cool thing to happen in Aust sport and see how it went.
Albert Ross said | May 9th 2009 @ 11:35am | Report comment
Regretably the Ebbsfleet United experiment is still very much that. Despite a take up of $AUD70 memberships in the MyFC society by roughly 29,000 people from many countries around the world in the first year, renewals have been at a disappointing level – far less than what is required to pay for the running of a full time professional club even in the 5th tier of English football.for another year.
Why renewals have not been adequate to maintain support of the team as it was when it was acquired are many. One is that a o lot of people signed up because they thought it would be the team they followed (eg. Leeds) that would be the subject of a take over and so they were lost from the day the vote was to buy EUFC . Then there is the issue is that a fair number of stalwarts of the “old” EUFC joined and tended to vote as a bloc effectively stymying pick the team votes by voting for “the let the coach do it” option thereby frustrating those who joined to do the team selection. And it has to be said that the functionality of the pick the team online tool was not all that it could have been. There was also a great deal of infighting in the forums in the off season after the euphoria the FA Trophy win had worn off. There was inadequate control over the accounts of the club (ie. not the MyFC society) and a failure to appreciate by most of the society members that revenues from all sources were inadequate,
The costs of running a full time professional club even in the 5th tier are staggering. And when you have a team that has adopted a new name, has just gone F/T pro and has never had any real engagement with its local district (the very appropriately monikered Gravesend) getting an average of less than 1000 paying punters to a game you have a recipe for TROUBLE.
I joined because I thought the MyFC idea offered an alternative to corporate ownership of sports clubs. I was sadly deluded. At the end of the day the idea that a large number of mostly not very well off people should donate their hard earned towards giving afew fit, healthy young men the opportunity to engage full time in a pursuit they love is in fact crazy especially as those fortunate guys owe the membership absolutely no loyalty at the end of their contract (or, with some notable exceptions, even during for that matter).
I do not know what the future of professional sports is but I do not think that there is a place for the MyFC model in its current iteration.
Disclosure: I am still a member of myfootballclub.co.uk
onside said | May 9th 2009 @ 2:21pm | Report comment
Kurt I like your idea , and Albert Ross it was terrific to get a response from somebody involved. Good stuff.
Kurt said | May 10th 2009 @ 8:24am | Report comment
Thanks Albert, perhaps we’ll put that idea on hold for now. You almost feel for something like that to work it would have to be a start up team without historical baggage and an entrenched supporter base, and people would have to sign up for a minimum of five years.
Greg Russell said | May 10th 2009 @ 10:18am | Report comment
The interesting thing for me is that FFA has the money to take over teams from financially struggling owners. This suggests that there is enough money in the sport, but that it is over-concentrated in the center. This recalls cricket in Australia (where all the state teams rely totally on handouts from Cricket Australia) and rugby in NZ (where the NZRU actually pays the contracts of all Super 14 players). Obviously the FFA is not as financially powerful as these two other examples, but the fact that they are wealthy enough to bail out Adelaide and Brisbane suggests that they are disproportionately wealthy.
Incidentally, where does FFA’s money come from? Do the Socceroos playing in Asia really generate that much money for FFA? Do they cream off more of the TV rights for the HAL than they really should? Is it Frank Lowy’s deep pockets?
Albert Ross said | May 10th 2009 @ 1:57pm | Report comment
>>You almost feel for something like that to work it would have to be a start up team without historical baggage and an entrenched supporter base, and people would have to sign up for a minimum of five years.
Yes well perhaps the AFC Wimbledon model is one to watch.
The have now progressed to tier 5 since starting out in tier 9 in 2002–03.
Tier 5 football means that they will be coming up against f/t pro clubs for the first time so it reamisn to be seen how successful they will be next season.