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Football Federation Australia is stuck with Gold Coast United for at least another two years, unless chairman Clive Palmer decides to pull the pin before his licence expires.
(Read more opinion:
Adrian Musolino: It’s time to cut Gold Coast United loose
Mike Tuckerman: A-League’s Palmer feud expected to drag on)
They’re the cold hard facts.
Queensland’s richest man created headlines yesterday by revealing that he didn’t like football, thought rugby league was a better game, and that the A-League was a joke.
If you just read the juicy parts of the article in the Sunday Mail you’d come to the conclusion that Palmer would be posting his licence back to head office as soon as the final game of the season was completed.
One quote in particular though suggests this could be just another chapter in the ongoing war between Palmer and FFA.
“If we wanted to stay (in the A-League) and they (FFA) wanted to take it (the licence) off us, they’d all be in court, and Ben Buckley would run a thousand miles,” Palmer told the newspaper.
That is exactly why the issue won’t go anywhere.
Palmer doesn’t like the way the game is run in this country and has made no secret about that.
But it would cost FFA around $2 million to buy out the final two years of the agreement and that is money they don’t have.
The newspaper tirade falls into the category of bringing the game into disrepute, but it’s hardly grounds for a license to be revoked.
The decision to make 17-year-old rookie Mitch Cooper captain at the weekend and then suspend coach Miron Bleiberg for questioning the seriousness of the appointment was also laughable.
Still, it doesn’t give FFA the green light to tear up their contract.
Their inability to get fans through the gate is also a major cause for concern.
One of the most damning assessments of the club’s importance to the community came from Gold Coast Mayor Ron Clarke at the start of the year.
When questioned about the difference between AFL side the Gold Coast Suns and Gold Coast United he was far from diplomatic.
“There’s a big difference,” he said. “Gold Coast United have said, ‘You should be watching us.’ They haven’t sent their players into the community. We had a junior soccer tournament for 10 days. We had 10,000 kids competing and not one player turned up, not one player for an hour from Gold Coast United bothered to come along.”
“That really typifies their community spirit. People here wouldn’t even know their names. Whereas the Suns players have all signed up with surf lifesaving clubs … they’ve actually made themselves a part of the community and I think they’ll go as well, community-wise, as (NRL side) the Titans.”
That is something that is almost impossible to turn around.
Is that enough for the FFA to legally end their relationship with the club? Palmer doesn’t seem to think so and he probably would’ve checked.
So, how will this end?
Palmer could bail out at the end of this season, but it would be his choice and seemingly not at the direction of FFA.
He’s not a man who is likely to be bothered by losing $2 million when, by his own calculations, he has another $20 billion in projects to worry about.
If that was the case though why mention the possibility of legal action?
You get the sense that this will drag on.
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