Palmer to get FFA dressing down after fan revolt over cap

By Jim Morton, 2 Nov 2009 Jim Morton is a Roar Pro

Tagged:: A-League, Clive Palmer, crowd cap, football, Gold Coast United

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Gold Coast United club chairman Clive Palmer (right) and head coach Miron Bleiberg speak at a press conference at Skilled Park on the Gold Coast, Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2009. AAP Image/Laine Clark

The FFA is waiting on billionaire owner Clive Palmer’s reaction to a Gold Coast fan revolt before moving to end his controversial crowd cap.

With major A-League sponsor Hyundai understood to be furious, a showdown between the sport’s governing body and Queensland’s richest man looms this week.

The FFA desperately hopes Palmer shelves his stadium cost-cutting measures before the besieged Coast host Sydney FC at Skilled Park on Saturday night.

But few expect him to budge despite disgruntled United supporters sending a loud and clear message during the 2-0 loss to North Queensland on Saturday night.

Just 2,616 fans – the club’s lowest attendance and one of the smallest crowds in the competition’s five-year history – were on hand as former Liverpool star Robbie Fowler exacerbated the Coast’s week from hell with a second-half double.

Of those, the hardiest and most loyal fans made their displeasure known at capping attendance at 5,000 to save $100,000 in high stadium costs.

United supporters group “The Beach” – waving banners that read ‘Cap is Crap’, ‘Want fans not dollars’ and ‘Scrap the Cap’ – turned their backs on the game at one stage and chanted ‘Stop the Cap’.

They also broke past security guards containing the small crowd in the western grandstand to briefly set up shop in their usual position behind the goals in a vacant northern stand.

A-League boss Archie Fraser is set to meet in person with Palmer over the issue for the first time in the coming days.

While guarded about its strategy, the FFA isn’t about to sit back and idly allow crowds to be limited.

As any fine would be small change to the mining magnate, who is valued at $5.5 billion, revoking Palmer’s licence could not be ruled out as his stance runs contrary to the club’s participation agreement.

With Sydney FC sitting atop of the A-League, the FFA are determined to move before Saturday night’s clash.

“Next week is another big game against a top side in Sydney FC and on paper this match should be attracting a healthy crowd,” an FFA spokeswoman said.

“It should be a high-quality encounter between two talented teams and it’s a great pity if it can’t be enjoyed by a big crowd.”

Palmer and United chief executive Clive Mensink could not be contacted for comment on Sunday but coach Miron Bleiberg denied the small crowd affected his team against Fowler’s Fury.

“I was quite surprised with the atmosphere today and I thought the noise was as usual and our supporters were as loyal and as noisy and entertained themselves,” he said.

Bleiberg, criticised by Fraser for self-promotion during the week, began his post-match press conference by stating he did not want to attend.

He ended it by earning the ire of Fraser, who sat quietly at the back of the room.

“I’ve got an idea, Archie can you listen?” Bleiberg said.

“Maybe we should do the 8,000 (attending Brisbane Roar matches) and 2,000 from here and (make a) 10,000 double-header. You pay one rent and you get 10,000 people.”

Fraser was unimpressed, replying: “Just open the stadium up. It’s not hard.”

Topping off a dreadful week for the Coast was a serious knee injury to Brazilian midfielder Robson which may require surgery and sideline him for two months.

Meanwhile, Alex Brosque led Sydney FC to a 3-1 thumping of Wellington Phoenix at the Sydney Football Stadium on Sunday to maintain their lead at the top of the table one point clear of Melbourne Victory.

Brosque had a hand in all Sydney’s goals in a 20-minute blitz with his sick strike partner Mark Bridge scoring a double before being handed a deserved rest in the 53rd minute.

In the late match, Melbourne had their first win in Perth for more than three year, beating the Glory 2-1.

Sydney have 25 points, Melbourne 24 and Gold Coast are another four points behind in third place.

North Queensland managed to drag themselves off the bottom of the table with the 2-0 win, courtesy of a Robbie Fowler brace, on the Gold Coast on Saturday night.

Central Coast and Adelaide had a 0-0 draw in Canberra while Newcastle and Brisbane had a 1-1 draw to maintain their spots on the bottom of the table.

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The Crowd Says (20) | Page 1 of Comments

cab711 said | November 2nd 2009 @ 7:02am | Report comment

Go easy on the big guy, he has a weak heart.

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phil said | November 2nd 2009 @ 9:28am | Report comment

Palmer’s a disgrace, all he’s doing is turning off supporters and also damaging the A-League brand. The FFA should have not have awarded Palmer an A-league licence . Also with crowd numbers down the FFA need to bring entrance fees down . AFL children’s tickets are only $2.50, why can’t they do the same with the A-Leauge. Ben Buckley better so something about it othewise he’ll be on the chopping block.

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GeneralAshnak said | November 2nd 2009 @ 12:21pm | Report comment

One gets the feeling that FFA needs to have AUFC’s proposed new owners take up its reins so they can take away Palmer’s licence and step in to run the club. I do not understand what Palmer’s problem is? He knew the club would lose money, that is why it needed a war chest to bank roll its first 5 years of opperation! I would think that he would have been depserately marketing the club like made to try and driver crowd attendances to over the 10k mark as quickly as possible. I feel bad for the GCU team and fans. And the rest of us actually. Palmer is damaging not only GCU but the HAL in general. To piss off the major sponsor of a league is unbelievable, this more than anything else will force the FFA’s hand.

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Realfootball said | November 2nd 2009 @ 12:36pm | Report comment

Palmer’s licence needs to be revoked as a matter of urgency. This one man is doing more than sink a club, he jeopardising the A League. And yes he may be rich, but Hyundai and Foxtel are bigger and they are both very, very unhappy with what has happened. And then there’s the implications for our World Cup bid. Honestly, you would think Palmer is doing this deliberately if his pantomime hubris wasn’t already established.

Given his arrogance and myopic detachment from reality, it is hard to see Palmer backing down. This is likely to get much worse before it gets better. If he doesn’t change tack for this weekend, the FFA will have no option but move to take control of the club out of his hands.

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Pippinu said | November 2nd 2009 @ 12:46pm | Report comment

Guys – the FFA have to tread warily here – one things for sure – this can’t end up in court or it would be as messy as hell.

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- Realfootball said | November 2nd 2009 @ 1:35pm | Report comment
  
  Absolutely – mine was an emotional reaction of a season’s ticket holder whose wallet is still stinging from the worst investment I have made in many a year.
  
  Of course, Pip, you are assuming that Palmer wants to keep the license. I am not at all sure about that.
  
  My concern is that Palmer isn’t a man who looks likely to compromise – but then again, he brokers iron ore deals with the Chinese, so he must be able to negotiate if he has to.
  
  As for my season ticket – I shelved it last week, didn’t go the game and am currently planning to write it off and take the train up to Suncorp, where at least the owners have shown themselves willing to think again. Sitting watching Gold Coast lose to Sydney in front of 1500 people (yes it will be worse after the train no show debacle) is not my idea of a good night out.
  
  And that is what football is in the end. A good night out. Correction, Mr Palmer – an affordable good night out.
  
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  - Pippinu said | November 2nd 2009 @ 3:00pm | Report comment
    
    By the way Realf – I’ve been buying memberships all my life without necessarily being able to go to games (for one reason or another) – leave that one up on the shelf and don’t worry about it – by the end of the season, you might have a good reason to get down again – or you keep it as a bit of a souvenir and a reminder of just a shithouse sport can be sometimes – get another next year – and it might be a reminder of the exact opposite.
    
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AndyRoo said | November 2nd 2009 @ 12:59pm | Report comment

Pip’s advice seems solid to me.

I feel for GCU fans but the FFA can’t be too heavy handed. Just ride it out and be ready to take over if he wants to hand back his license.

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GeneralAshnak said | November 2nd 2009 @ 1:34pm | Report comment

Palmer may be in trouble with more than the FFA, Hyundai and Fox may have something to say on the issue. Frankly though, if he is in breach of contract then he is gone. When you do not uphold the tenets of a contract it leaves you with not much to stand on, after all as a great Futurama quote goes ” He is the best sort of right, technically right.”

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- Realfootball said | November 2nd 2009 @ 1:43pm | Report comment
  
  Absolutely. If its Foxtel and Hyundai lining up against Palmer, the big guy is going to come of second best everytime. As to what is actually in the contracts, who knows.
  
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  - Pippinu said | November 2nd 2009 @ 2:56pm | Report comment
    
    Realf
    you said above that Palmer may no longer be interested – and that may be true – but here’s two things I know about billionaires:
    
    1. they’ll move heaven and Earth to save 2 cents; on the other hand
    2. they’ll spend the Earth just to get up someone’s nose.
    
    In other words, it’s far too hard trying to rationalise what he might do under various scenarios – but I reckon it’s unlikely he’ll just walk away without making some noise.
    
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Luke W said | November 2nd 2009 @ 2:33pm | Report comment

I thought Craig Foster made an excellent point on The World Game yesterday afternoon when he asked what is a football club without fans? Then correctly aknowledged it’s just a bunch of amatuers chasing a ball, because with out fans they sure as hell won’t be professionals.

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- Pippinu said | November 2nd 2009 @ 2:57pm | Report comment
  
  Interestingly, a couple of MV rejects did look like amateurs on the weekend – all the more starker silhoutted against the empty seats.
  
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albatross said | November 2nd 2009 @ 3:19pm | Report comment

The FFA and Hyundai are clearly hopeless at marketing and especially at parlaying Hyundai’s connection with the A-L into $.

For example I just got my latest Hyundai A-League eNews three hours ago – too bad it was promoting Round 13 (this last weekend). Now that newsletter is the responsibility of the FFA but Hyundai should have the list seeded and be screaming if it does not get delivered by at least the Thursday before the games.

We recently bought a new Hyundai. Good value cars and we were partially influenced by their sponsorship of the HA-L. But there was not one skerrick of A-League promotional material at the dealers and the sales person did not seem to be aware of the sponsorship.

The very least “somebody” should be doing is making sure that purchasers get complimentary tickets for a game or two at the nearest A-L ground.

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- Realfootball said | November 2nd 2009 @ 3:39pm | Report comment
  
  Agree. The FFA performance in the commercial operations and marketing area has been low profile to the point of non existance. I note that all the talk about “keeping the powder dry” on marketing until after the other codes have finished has come to absolutely nothing. No marketing, no publicity.
  
  Is it any surprise that crowds are falling if there is no promotion of the game?
  
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- NUFCMVFC said | November 2nd 2009 @ 4:18pm | Report comment
  
  That’s interesting, I thought you were supposed to be able to get some kind of discount if you were a HAL club member, I am not really looking at cars but I seem to recall it being advertised
  
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NUFCMVFC said | November 2nd 2009 @ 4:32pm | Report comment

Overall though, I think best case scenario is they simply sit down and “work it out”. I guess you could say it is a case of a test of the FFA’s diplomatic skills, as previously they have just been able to pretty much overbearingly dictate to everyone.

Obviously we need football people involved in ownership, but it also needs non football Business people to put money up and to see the value, we do have a couple of clubs owned by the FFA remember? So any rash removal of licenses may not be the best idea, as it may put off potential investors more than is already the case

Interesting to note the difference in approach between Roar and GCU, Roar is a marketers approach to cut prices, whereas GCU is a mining magnates approach which is to try to cut operating costs. It may take a while for Roars crowds to trickle back as a lot of people would have thought “stuff it” at the start of the season, so far they have been effectively no responsive to changes in ticket prices which has perhaps affected GCU’s decision. perhaps not though given they made the decision two weeks ago when they wouldn’t have really been able to assess the impact of Roars changes

Will be interesting to see how this pans out.

What was the attendance at the last GCU vs SFC match? I think 6kish but not certain?

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