Palmer attacked for capping Skilled Park crowd sizes

GCU do leave a lot of questions that need to be answered when it comes to their involvement in the community and the way it attracts fans. From all reports they have done little-to-no advertising for their games, and very little community involvement. There was a youth football tournament on the Gold Coast a couple weeks ago and United did no advertising, not even give free kids tickets to entice people to go, even though the organisers of the tournament tried to get in contact with the club; opportunities other clubs would have jumped at. As it has also been reported that you are lucky to find maybe one ad in the newspapers on the Gold Coast advertising matches, what did Clive Palmer think? That people who don’t follow the league but may want to, know when games are on unless you tell them? The FFA have said that both North Queensland Fury and Gold Coast United submitted plans that predicted the crowds being around the 5000 mark, which would indicate that Palmer has been planning to do this all along, hence no attempt to advertise. Personalities like Palmer and Bleiberg are always going to be double edge swords, they may be good for the club but you have to accept the negative things that come with that ego’s being the main thing. There has been more about Palmer and Bleiberg than about most of the Gold Coast players and instead of making outlandish statements all during the pre season or even during the current season they should of been promoting the Gold Coast team around there 3 main players Culina, Smeltz and Porter and trying to make the Gold Coast public feel like they want to be a part of something special, instead without having played a game they tried to clam to be the best team in the league and now the egg has certainly landed on their faces. However the FFA should have some responsibility in all this because instead of going with the Gold Coast Galaxy bid by which all reports didn’t have as much money as the united bid, it did have a plan to work with the grass roots community and build the club up, similar to the Fury bid however the FFA chose the most money option and now it is coming back to bite them because as much as this team is one of the A-league’s best with some quality players in it and play some wonderful football no-one wants to go watch them due to all the reasons listed before and capping the crowd at the stadium will do nothing to help them gain an image in the community or make them want to be a part of it. The Fact FFA didn’t really way up the business plan properly is a mistake, the fact the Miron Bleiberg seems to be out for his own interest is sad and the fact that Clive Palmer seems not be interested in getting the people involved is bad.

Palmer typifies the mentality that caused the current economic crisis. Strip the licence, transfer the club's assets to a new owner. Surely it can be done?

What is all this talk about the community etc? the fact is there are only 5000 or so people who care enough to go. soccer is not in the same league as the titans and never will be. the afl will find this out soon enough as well. it makes economic sense for him to cap the crowd, an extra 2000 people and he would still lose a sled load of money.

I think we are on track for a sydney vs melbourne grand final. That will be something to remember.

It is such a shame all this nonsense is surrounding the new club. So much drama and controversy off the paddock is overshadowing what is being played on it. The club is great value and the recruiting has been dynamite. Again the owner of a HAL club has put his own personal interests 1st. I just hope that this season is not the last for GCU. I have enjoyed there style of play and there have been some quality games up until lately from the club. I was quite relieved when the Western Sydney bid failed, I invisioned the same scenario occuring. I just hope Rowden is now a sloppy second option. Will this season be known for anything other than crowd numbers?

Taplin on the Galaxy bid from 2007. http://www.goldcoast.com.au/article/2007/12/14/5980_gold-coast-feature.html "I would prefer 2009 because that gives us more time to build a fan base and promotion, which is a very big aspect of what we are doing," said Taplin. "Until the FFA get the full submission I can't comment on who the people behind the bid are," he said. "I can say that they are very prominent Gold Coast businessmen, very prominent. "We would be disappointed if we did not get around 10,000 there from the start," said Taplin. "We have no doubt the Gold Coast can and will support this team." Or maybe he has dodged a huge bullet?

Clive Palmer has a history of poor relationships with the current QLD govt. Maybe he just couldnt bear the thought of giving them an extra 100 grand per fortnight. Aussies also dont like loud mouths or show offs. Both of which Palmer and Bleiberg are. Fred Talpin's Gold Coast Galaxy bid was one which engaged the local community. He was set to get the team until the FFA railroaded him after being blinded by the billions of Palmer and yet its the billionaire being the cheapskate. The FFA are as much to blame for this. Ticket pricing for Brisbane and Gold Coast have also been way off the mark. If anyone thinks that a a-league tam should be charging the same as AFL/NRL is deluded.

They are doing a good job of making Fury a likeable club, that's for sure. I was rather concerned that Fury would struggle as a club however it appears my fears were misplaced. They should have been further South.

Titans and the Blaze will be laughing today too

This summarise everything wrong about Gold Coast Question - "That's not the fault of the fans surely?" Mensik - "Isn't it? The team's on top of the table, you had second versus third with Perth and we only got 4,000. So is that the fault of Clive Palmer? Why didn't they come? They knew about it. The game's on." Apparently there was also a joke from club official about the high ticket prices ""We charge the most because we are the best!" My gosh the arrogance can't go any higher. They get into a stadium deal where you have to get 10k to break even and now blame the fans that they couldn't get to that mark.

Gold Coast United = template for how not to do expansion. GCU needs to re-build from the ground up. Why are they not getting the families from Robina? They have the Titians model right there in front of them to replicate. Can't see why in summer time they can't swap the Blue jersey for a Yellow one.

quotes like this are a worry: “By putting this team together Clive has done a favour to the community." you'd hope that's not the perspective of upper management, ie. just put a team in and reap praise. But i take exception to the term "Lock out"... i'm not convinced anyone who wants to go would be locked out, because i'm not convinced they've got more than 5000 people interested enough to turn up! they've obviously stuffed up promotion.

Well said AndyRoo.

I agree Realfootball... I think for the good of the game we have to hit rock bottom here. Was considering going to the Gold Coast for Adelaide United's match up there...not now.

To be honest it's not so much the decision that rankles me. I think it's a weak decision but if it was sold the right way (rather than abusing the fans) then it could work. If the CEO came out appolegitic and explained this is going to save the club over 120k a game and make the club long term sustainable that would have took a lot of steam out of the situation. Instead ...well I have read an interview on 442 and saw one on Fox Sports news and they were disgusting.

I can understand that if it costs you $140k to let the 5001st fan in that it makes sense to do what they did. I can’t guess what their figures look like but only paying 40k to rent the stadium means the team looks more sustainable. That seems good for the long term as the else they have to ask of Palmer the better. If he is only chipping in now and then for a Marquee or to host glamour friendly then I wouldn’t be so worried about him eating too many pies at half time and then the club disappear as the Ambulance goes of in the sunset. Hopefully they can renegotiate the deal and open up another stand as well and reduce their ticket prices. I am not privy to any of the Stadium deals but Nth QLD Fury have the same land lord and have prices that are much more reflective of a first year team in a new market. If he doesn’t have to write a cheque to Anna Bligh for 100k each game maybe he could write that cheque instead to a local company to produce some GCU branded merchandise the players can give out when they visit schools. The reason this club is a total failure though is how they went about it. Palmers letter is condescending and unapologetic and Mesinek on TV was the same. He was lashing out at the fans that were showing up as well as the ones who haven’t yet. I remember from the very early days when they were asked about their ticket prices the reply was “That’s what the titans charge and no one complains”. Ignoring the fact that the Titans are an NRL team which in QLD is the equivalent of SONY while the HAL is Aikiwa… people do complain about the price of the Titans. It is the only thing keeping them from selling out Robina. It seems that Mine owners and their chief executives mix in different circles than I. Putting Mesinek in front of a camera is a mistake that should never happen again. They need someone with some affinity for the regular local. Rule number is don’t lash out at your own fans when to be honest they are brilliant. To get 4k to the most expensive team in the A league and for people to buy memberships at that price for a start up team is a fantastic commitment and should be rewarded not abused.

KB Much as it pains me to say this, for the long term future of the club I hope you are cheering amongst very sparse company on the weekend. The best thing that could happen at this point is for GCU to record an A League record low attendance on the weekend, which I believe it will, and precipitate a crisis that will force FFA's hand. I have a feeling that this situation has to get worse before it can get better.

Absolutely, Art Sapphire. My issue is with the current management - as in the way the club is being managed, rather than personnel. I - and I am sure many others - would welcome an FFA takeover and from that point would do all I could to support the club. At this point I simply can't see what the future of GCU is with Palmer in control.

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 ….

Fans of any code should have real sympathy for this poor treatment of GCU fans. It is unbeleiveable that a sport would lock out its fans deliberately to save a few dollars. I hope for your sake they get their act together and as Art suggests the FFA take the club over. Surely a better strategy would be to drive the crowds up, build the fan base to a sustainable level in the future. A bit of front end marketing to fans with the back end negotiating with the Goverment for a better deal. Redb