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The Newcastle Jets sit in a precarious position, but the FFA must not let the A-League club die. Newcastle is one of the oldest and most productive football regions in Australia, along with Illawarra.
Clubs in the Hunter region like West Wallsend and Adamstown Rosebud hark back to the late 1800s, and Newcastle is the centrepoint of the Northern NSW Soccer Federation. It has produced a heap of Socceroos, and the city has always had a team in the National Soccer League and now the A-League.
So far the FFA has financially assisted nearly every club in the six years of the A-League’s existence. It’s no secret that the FFA has had a strained relationship with the Jets because of their outspoken owner Con Constantine. Eccentric and often volatile, Constantine bankrolled Newcastle United in the old NSL, when the Newcastle Breakers went under, and then the Jets when the A-League started. Since 2000 he has reportedly spent around $15 million in keeping professional football alive in Newcastle.
Despite running on one of the smallest budgets in the competition, the Jets have had some great success in the A-League already. They won the title in 2008 and have produced some great players along the way – James Holland, Stuart Musialik, Mark Bridge and Ben Kantarovski. The club has also helped further the careers of several players like Nicky Carle, Andrew Durante, Jade North, Matt Thompson and the Griffiths brothers Joel, Adam and Ryan, who have gone on to great heights. The Jets also helped develop one of Australia’s most promising young coaches, Gary von Egmond.
Constantine has had run ins with a lot of people – the FFA, his own fans, other clubs and even local NRL club the Newcastle Knights. The main two reasons for the Jets current financial woes is because they don’t have a major sponsor and because they don’t make enough money from their home games. They have been embroiled in lawsuit with the Knights over leasing EnergyAustralia stadium, and while the lawsuit has ended the overall stadium situation is far from resolved. Constantine now needs some financial assistance and the FFA must bite the bullet, put its hand into its wallet and help out. Constantine may be far from the perfect owner, but it his money and goodwill that has made sure top-flight football survives in the area.
If the Jets went under it would not only be a black spot for the FFA, which is hell bent on expansion, it would be a terrible look for the A-League brand. It would have a terrible affect on one of the real heartlands of Australian football, and eventually on our men’s and women’s junior and senior national teams. Socceroos such as Ray Baartz, Troy Halpin, Col Curran, Reg Date, Clayton Zane, David Lowe, Graham Jennings, Robbie Middleby and Richard Johnson, to name just a few, have come out of Newcastle and the Hunter region. Liverpool legend Craig Johnston is another fantastic product of the area.
For the sake of future Socceroo sides, we need to make sure this fertile production line not only survives but continue to thrives.
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