Palmer attacked for capping Skilled Park crowd sizes

By Jim Morton, 29 Oct 2009 Jim Morton is a Roar Pro

Tagged:: A-League, Clive Palmer, football, Gold Coast United, Miron Bleiberg, Skilled Park

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Gold Coast United’s owner Clive Palmer and coach Miron Bleiberg’s self-promotion have been blamed for the lack of support which will see them cap Skilled Park crowds at 5,000.

A-League boss Archie Fraser, angered by the controversial lockout of fans for Saturday night’s clash with North Queensland, on Wednesday blamed United for failing to connect with their community and promote “local heroes”.

Fraser said the Coast’s grass-roots supporters had turned their back on the self-confessed glamour club, which had shown in the meagre home attendances.

“I think the way they have approached promoting the product and their club has been more about promoting the owner and the coach than promoting the heroes,” Fraser said on SEN.

“Clearly the public at this point in time is switched off even though the team plays good football.

“They play stylish football and win but there are no local heroes.”

The comments of Fraser, who also claimed fragmentation within the fledgling club had led to Sunday’s record 6-0 loss in Wellington, led to denials from Coast officials who say they must cut costs to stay afloat.

“At the end of the day we need to be a successful venture or the club won’t be here for a long time,” club chief executive Clive Mensink told AAP.

Mensink, wary about the poor history of Coast teams in national competitions, said Palmer and Bleiberg’s big-talking ways were not designed to take the attention away from their players.

“At the end of the day we don’t control what the media prints,” he said.

“As we know Clive is an attraction all to himself. The media listens to every word he has to say and they dwell on it a lot.”

No more than 5,000 spectators will be allowed into the eastern grandstand at Skilled Park on Saturday night when Robbie Fowler’s North Queensland Fury look to avenge their 5-0 round two thrashing by United.

Palmer, currently overseas, and Bleiberg have defended the move on the basis that recent crowds of 4,209 and 4,509 have contributed to significant losses on their rent agreement with Stadiums Queensland.

Under their current arrangement, the rent drops from $140,000 to $40,000 per game for crowds less than 5,000.

By capping the crowd, United aren’t required to pay a state government transport levy and will also save money on stadium staff and not having to implement a traffic plan.

Mensink denied the third-placed club were taking the unconventional approach to haggle for a better deal, insisting that the charity of billionaire Palmer only extends so far.

“I think there’s a lot of expectation that Clive can pay for everything and that’s disappointing,” he said.

“By putting this team together Clive has done a favour to the community.

“If it wasn’t for Clive there wouldn’t be a team here now and we wouldn’t have players like Jason Culina or Shane Smeltz playing for the Gold Coast.”

The Coast on Wednesday dropped ticket prices for Saturday night’s game, with top-end adult tickets being reduced from $55 to $30 and $15 for children.

Rival club Brisbane Roar, who are also suffering from the lowest crowds in their five-year history, also attacked United’s approach.

“At a time where the game should be sticking together, this is a ridiculous situation and it’s sending out mixed messages to football fans,” Roar chairman Chris Bombolas said.

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The Crowd Says (37) | Page 1 of Comments

The Answer said | October 29th 2009 @ 5:28am | Report comment

Surely a first in professional sport in Australia, maybe it should be spun as such.

Will GCU claim victory in the code wars if the house full sign goes up at 5,000.

I think the honeymoon period is over for Clive Palmer. Gee, remember when all the football folk loved him, and his brash big talking ways, that seems like a long time ago.

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Michael Turner said | October 29th 2009 @ 5:44am | Report comment

Seriously, Clive and Bleiberg’s dreams have brought down the new Glamour Club. It would have been such a great colub with support etc, if they two hadn’t just taken all ownership the way they wanted it.

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Billo said | October 29th 2009 @ 5:47am | Report comment

What it demonstrates is that people who are very successful in business of a particular sort often underestimate the problems of running a successful professional sports club.
Michael Searle apparently had limited business experience before establishing the Titans, but he put his life and soul, and great belief in rugby league, into that club, whereas GCU is just a small part of Palmer’s empire. The difference is all too obvious.

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- Michael Turner said | October 29th 2009 @ 6:00am | Report comment
  
  Your right on that. Bleiberg seems to have to big an Agenda of his own, which does tell us that he is more interested in how he can benefit from the club and not how the club can benefit. That is why the club isn’t doing as well as it should
  
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- The Answer said | October 29th 2009 @ 7:48am | Report comment
  
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  - The Link said | October 29th 2009 @ 8:31am | Report comment
    
    Pretty sure Searle runs his own Sports Management / Events company? He’s also a qualified CA. Agree though that its his passion that sets him apart. He should be running RL at the moment, the success of the Titans and the upcoming All Star game can pretty much be attributed to him.
    
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bruski said | October 29th 2009 @ 6:06am | Report comment

As I have said in another thread elsewhere, they have lost me. I wanted to be a GCU fan but the fact they think they can have a sucessful team without support beggars belief.

Am I upset, why no as I have 3 other sports to choose from on the coast, League, Bball and AFL all of whom want the punters to come to the games.

I do believe that if they done their marketing before the season begun then they would not be in this position. Were they actually arrogant enough to believe that Soccer would need no marketing and that the crowds would turn up by default?

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Redb said | October 29th 2009 @ 6:33am | Report comment

Given that Clive Palmer was quite derisive about the new AFL team on the Gold Coast I can barely contain my pleasure in watching this git stuff up a perfectly good futbol team, in a brand new stadium with billions behind him.

LOL doesn’t even come close. Apologies for the gloat.

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- M1tch said | October 29th 2009 @ 2:18pm | Report comment
  
  Titans and the Blaze will be laughing today too
  
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Crosscoder said | October 29th 2009 @ 6:41am | Report comment

Billo.
Have to respond to that load of nonsense re Searle of the GC Titans.”aparently limited business experience”.
At 29 years of age in 1999 he agreed to spearhead GC bid for an NRL licence on 15/3/99.A month earlier he had established an accounting practice with colleague Mark Sessarago.
In other words he was a qualified accountant before he established the practice.If a chartered accountant has limited business experience ,we have big problems.
The first bid for the licence was knocked back on 16/8/04.This gent,who apparently has “limited” business experience persevered and achieved the licence on 27/5/09.
The same gent managers some surfing people.
Therefore he oversees an extremely professional NRL club,is a senior partner in an accountancy firm and manages sportmen,and at the same time is responsible for getting the new commission up and running.Yeah limited business experience,I shakes my head.

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- Billo said | October 29th 2009 @ 6:49am | Report comment
  
  Crosscoder, I’m not trying to be negative about Searle, or decry his previous experience – quite the reverse.
  The point I made about him, though, was that compared to Palmer he didn’t have experience of running a major corporation, but he did have a single minded vision to make the Titans a leading club, which he achieved superbly.
  
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Crosscoder said | October 29th 2009 @ 7:08am | Report comment

Billo.
I understand now where you are coming from ,it certainly didn’t come across that way,anycase you didn’t specify the comparison ATT.
Agree Palmers expertise is a big corp,where he has a legion of “lackeys” who advise him and do his books etc etc.
You stated “Searle has apparently limited business experience,before establishing the Titans”.I simply responded to an erroneous comment. Searle deals with no doubt many high flyers on the GC and beyond.
I also understand Palmer who played rl,is somehow involved in a Central Qld bid for the NRL.
Searle understands the game and the nuances of administering it,he played it at ARL level with teh GC Seagulls..

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Kurt said | October 29th 2009 @ 7:18am | Report comment

To me the most telling quote from this article is: “top-end adult tickets reduced from $55 to $30 and $15 for children.”.
They’ve been REDUCED to $30? I’ve seen a few comments explaining low A-League crowds in terms of the cost of attending and assumed it was a cop-out excuse, but if some of the teams are really charging that much for a standard ticket (not sure what the overall price scales look like) then I’m not surprised crowds have been ordinary. $20 or so will get you into an AFL game, much less for kids. I assume it’s something similar for the NRL. How can a new A-league club think it can charge a premium over these established competitions?

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- AndyRoo said | October 29th 2009 @ 9:19am | Report comment
  
  Kurt
  
  GCU and the Roar have the most expensive tickets in the competition. Until this week the Brisbane Roar were more expensive than the Brisbane Lions. They have just introduced a $15 bay but it took crowds going down around 60% for them to wake up.
  
  Not hard to see why the support has stopped growing. The clubs that have lost crowds have largely been the worst run clubs (Newcastle Jets, Brisbane Roar and GCU)
  
  The NRL is largely about the same but as you say an established competition, on FTA TV, massive media exposure due to much higher interest.
  
  There has been a fair bit of arrogance with how some teams have gone around their business and they have entered into some horrible stadium deals. You would think the fact the competition is played in summer would be a permanent daily reminder of where Football sits in the Australian sporting landscape ….
  
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The Answer said | October 29th 2009 @ 7:51am | Report comment

Billo,

Good point. Well made. And I think that is symptomatic of the whole A-League, at the start of the year all the talk was the AFL and NRL were just sitting ducks for the almighty juggernaut of football now that football was here and ready to take them head on.

The idea was because they had Lowy’s (and Palmer’s) bucks the whole place was about to go ape about a sport they hadn’t given two figs for in the past. Well look where that has gone.

The A-League is run like Lowy’s Westfield. You turn up thinking you are getting something special but in reality you are just another sucker paying too much for some second rate crap when you can get much better elsewhere.

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prowling panther said | October 29th 2009 @ 7:59am | Report comment

what a shambles this club appears to an outsider. To say the aleague has rushed expansion is an understatement

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