Palmer agrees to lift crowd cap after talks with FFA
By Wayne Heming, 3 Nov 2009 Wayne Heming is a Roar Pro
- Tagged:
- A-League, Clive Palmer, football, Gold Coast United, Sydney FC
Gold Coast United fans will be celebrating after news billionaire owner Clive Palmer will lift his crowd cap following talks with the Football Federation Australia on Monday.
United fans vented their spleen at Palmer’s cost-cutting move last Saturday night, sending the coal mining magnate a clear message they wanted their stadium open to all-comers before this weekend’s A-League blockbuster with Sydney FC.
After talks between Queensland’s richest man and the FFA it was determined the 5,000 crowd limit would be lifted with ticket prices to be restructured.
The aim is to attract more fans with FFA chief executive Ben Buckley saying a campaign aimed at building support in the local community would begin soon.
“We have always believed the fans are there and this move will help Gold Coast United get back in touch with its supporters and endeavour to build support and create new fans for the future,” he said in a release.
“We are committed to supporting the Gold Coast and we are delighted to reach a constructive agreement with Clive and his team.
“This is the first stage of winning the fans back and building strong community support for what is a very good football team.”
United chief executive Clive Mensink said the club had listened to fans views about the crowd cap that had allowed the club to host matches with a $100,000 reduction in operating coasts.
“We’ve listened to the fans and the community and they have told us that they want the stadium opened up and there are some issues around pricing,” he said.
“I have heard them loud and clear.”
Only 2,616 fans – the club’s lowest attendance and one of the smallest crowds in the competition’s five-year history – turned out last Saturday as North Queensland’s former Liverpool star Robbie Fowler banged home a second half double to exacerbate the Coast’s recent woes.
The club’s supporters group “The Beach” carried banners declaring the ‘Cap is Crap’, ‘Want fans not dollars’ and ‘Scrap the Cap’ and turned their backs on the game at one stage to get their protest across.
After the game United captain Jason Culina took the unusual action of approaching fans to apologise.
“I basically apologised to them and told them that we’re going to put things right,” the club’s marquee signing said.
“I couldn’t sleep on Saturday night, I was just tossing and turning, going over in my mind the performance and what we need to do to fix things.
“A percentage of the way we’ve been playing is down to everything that’s going on.
“Sometimes it’s hard to get motivated for games.”
The Gold Coast will get to gauge the reaction to the announcement this weekend when they play top of the table Sydney FC at Skilled Park on Saturday night.
It wasn’t all good news on Monday though with Brazilian import Robson facing six to eight weeks out with a serious knee injury.
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Kurt said | November 3rd 2009 @ 3:42am | Report comment
Wow, this will be a relief to those countless thousands locked out of the game on Saturday night.
Rocky Mountain Man said | November 3rd 2009 @ 4:40am | Report comment
I was just thinking the same thing Kurt. There seems to be more focus on the cap than on the fact that crowds aren’t even approaching the numbers where anybody would be locked out. And against Fowler’s team too. Suddenly the A-League is looking very amateur.
The Answer said | November 3rd 2009 @ 6:39am | Report comment
Cap or no cap, they only seem to be getting 5,000. It is not like they had 20,000 flocking in and Palmer decided to save cash.
Beat up and PR crap.
The guru said | November 3rd 2009 @ 12:16pm | Report comment
Kurt et al. The poor crowd for the fury game can be directly attributed to the cap. As many people stayed away as a protest. Gcu had 7500 for their first home game against the fury, the crowd spirraled down from there due to overpricing of tickets and poor ( no) marketing.
The Answer said | November 3rd 2009 @ 10:32pm | Report comment
Like Simon Hill, it is misprepresenting the facts to present their opening crowd of 7,500 to be some sort of average.
The club has been getting just over 5,000 to most of its games. Clearly there was a protest, but let’s not pretend 5,000 was chosen as some sort of drasatically cut level. It is about normal for GCU.
dasilva said | November 3rd 2009 @ 10:56pm | Report comment
I don’t think anyone saying that by capping the crowd to 5000 we are going to lock out a large number of fans.
The biggest complaint about the crowd cap is:
It shows a lack of ambition. Your crowd average is 5000. Instead of trying to improve the crowd average, you are throwing the towell and so we can’t do better. The reaction of low crowds in most clubs is by cutting ticket prices, increase marketing, taking the players to engage with the community (visit schools) etc. Capping the crowd is a cop out and shames the game.
The crowd capping is an insult to anyone who supports Gold Coast FC and anyone who supports football in Australia.
Also people complain that the season ticket holders had reserved specific seats for the entire season can no longer sit there. Also that they were guaranteed free public transport (it was factored in the price of the membership which was expensive) and Palmer initially removed that service along with the crowd cap.