Fury cruelly condemned to death?

As a Fury fan, from day one the club seemed to be struggling with obtaining fans as a result of a non-exsistent marketing campaign. If I ever logged onto the Fury website there was next to no information about the players, promotions and even kick off times for games. Even when the Fury had won their first game it took a couple of weeks for the standings on the web site to reflect it. I was appalled to observe people that were lining up to pay for tickets being given free tickets by Fury staff. Why would you do that when someone is prepared to pay. That is how inexperienced the Fury marketing team were!!!! The fans that turned up were incredible and the atmosphere was much better than a full capacity Cowboys crowd. I did not purchase a season ticket in the second year as due to another stuff up by the Fury marketing team who sent my letter of offer two weeks after the cut off date. How poor is that!!!! Instead I purchased cheaper tickets to the odd game here and there when I could. Prior to that I was fully prepared to pay my $300 odd dollars. Fury fans were never given a chance to build up their numbers which I believe was as a result of poor management on behalf of the FFA. Give us another chance and a bit of guidance and I am sure the Fury will become a strong force in the A League. I think the Fury and it's fans have been let down by the FFA which should have been giving the club some guidance.

not to mention bailing out the Roar.

BBC is running the story right now about the FFA ditching the Fury. Even ran an interview with Buckley.

As is often the case, I was 100% spot on the money.

The atmosphere at a Fury game is excellent. The bond between the spectators and the Fury players is strong, despite the assembled squad having been created with players that were largely unable to get contracts with other teams. The only lacklustre performance are usually displayed by the referees. We do not expect to shine with our performance in the first couple of years. The FFA, by having one foot on both sides of a barbed wire fence, with their media SILENCE have commited themselves to the pleasure of masochism. Maybe teams North of the Capricorn should play in one of the Asian Leauges. Why were willing Asian business men, wanting to back the Fury not allowed to do so, Mr Buckley?

tend to agree with you on this

crikey i think the pendulum is swinging too far the other way now. less clubs is less exciting. 9 clubs wld be dire - do you remember the groundhog dayness after a few rounds when only 8 were involved? 10 is a minimum IMO and 12 ideal but i agree they need to sort it out - from scheduling to promotion to national marketing. i dont think they need to wait 5, altho much will depend on the FFA cup and, TV deal. i am confident (or maybe just blindly hopeful) things arent as desperate as people blog....

well i wld rather say that fans are interested otherwise this article wldnt have been written and attracted all these responses, fox or hyundai wldnt sponsor, all those people who support/passionate about their clubs wldnt suffer each week when the mariners beat them. footy support is fractured here, but the HAL has more traction and support than you credit it with. NQs problems arent because the HAL is uninteresting.

I just wrote a really long blog about the A-lge & why it is failing to engage supporters & sponsors etc but I deleted it & am just going to say this instead- Clearly, from the level of media coverage & merchandise sold etc there is an enormous interest in football in Australia. Clearly, this interest is not in the A-lge or this article wouldn't even have been written. So if the fans of the game aren't interested in the A-Lge then why would anyone else be ?

The FFA have demonstrated their complete inability to manage a national soccer league. They have no idea how to market a game which is huge at community level and generates huge interest in the European and South American ex-pat community as well as others. Fury should never have been invited to join the league and there should never have been a second club in Melbourne until the national popularity of the brand had become secure. They now need to: Consolidate around 10 or even 9 clubs (perhaps without Gold Coast) Work hard at getting a team in Canberra. Start marketing the game properly, aiming especially at schools and ex-pat communities and ensuring that team marketing strategies work with the national plan Leave expansion to 12 teams for at least another 5 years whilst they are securing the brand.

None of this would have been an issue if th FFA weren't so strict as to which companies/business etc could sponsor/own A-League clubs. They vetoed the Indonesian consortium who wanted to buy Nth Qld. The FFA rules stopped Toyota from being a Nth Qld sponsor. Then you have the situation where the FFA wouldn't allow Nth Qld to sign players/re-sign players. The way the FFA have handled/treated not only the Nth Qld Fury, but it's fans and community is nothing short of disgraceful. If the fury goes under (which I believe it will) then you can be sure that the grow/development of football in the tropics will die, and kids will start going back to league. The A-League model was the wrong one for the start, and with that the FFA has no one to blame but themselves. TO try and past the blame on someone else - by saying if they can't come up with the money they are out (who in their right mind would part with their money, without knowing the fate of the club besides compulsive gamblers?). The FFA bailed out Perth for a long period of time, they took over Adelaide, and now feeding Brisbane. All those teams have much larger population, yet don't do much better in terms of crowd numbers etc. If the FFA kills off Nth Qld, then their hypocrisy sinks to a whole new low. UTTER DISGUST! MAKES ME SICK!

FUL - presumably if an A-League club was such a sound financial investment someone in the business world would have picked up the tab for the Fury by now. That they didn't leaves the theory on pretty shaky legs.

Disclaimer: Association Football is not my number one sport, or even football code, but I do enjoy the game and want it to be strong here. My knowledge is clearly not as strong as many others on this site. The current problem with the Fury brings me back to one issue I see with the A-League's direction - its lack. The FFA need to decide what sort of competition they want. Do they want a high quality competition, or a geographically inclusive one? It may be impossible to have both. Expecting Townsville, at under 5% of the population of Sydney (and smaller again economically) to be able to spend big is a danger. If teams are to exist in smaller cities, such as Townsville; or touted expansion towns such as Hobart, Geelong and Canberra; the expense to maintain a team has to be kept small. Doing that will limit the ability of the league to keep, or obtain, players. Going for a high quality, high expense, league will mean few teams, perhaps too few unless there are more teams in Sydney and Melbourne - but that goes back to the broken NSL model. The A-League has a choice to make; get the game to the people or get a high quality league. It can't have both, in the short to medium term at least. They can have some small cities, with slow growth in required expenditure. The likes of Sydney FC and the Victory may be held back somewhat with that structure, but it would allow consolodytion of the clubs struggling now and allow for some expansion in the near future. The A-League expenses are still small enough for some of the smaller cities to be serious contenders to field a team - but if that path is taken the FFA need to recognise that it will mean a lower cost, and therefore standard, will need to exist if those clubs remain in business. That said, I believe they should be giving NQ all the aid they need. Partly because the FFA are responsible for granting a licence not very long ago and bear partial responsibility for any mistake that was made (if it was one), but also because clubs folding is not a good look and will bring out some claiming it is the NSL collapse revisited. But right at the moment the people of northern Queensland have other things to focus on. I'm sure everyone here hopes they can rebuild their homes, and keep their sporting teams.

In what you quote above, it says straight out that Tony Sage loses money on owning the Glory - no one around is going to dispute that in a hurry. He says it's offset by the fact that doors open in the business world as a consequence of him owning the Glory. Well, yeh, maybe, sounds like a bit of a tall story, but hey, it's his money, so it's not for me to judge. On his River vs Boca story the question becomes: did he get an invite to the private box because he was a Glory owner or because he was a mine owner? It's unclear from his own account whether the drilling permit came because someone found out he owned the Glory, or whether it came because he pressed the flesh with someone who mattered inside the box. But anyway, it's neither here or there, most would recognise owning a sports clubs as a bit of an expensive hobby, and good luck to those who are capable of doing it.

So, on one hand, I have: a) Tony Sage telling us one story; but, on the other hand I have b) JF, who is telling us the opposite? So, here's my quandary ... ... do I listen to a Tony Sage, who is actually living the life and who is qualified to tell us about the pros and cons of owning a football club; or, .... should I listen to JF who, as far as I know, has never experienced, and most likely will never experience, what Tony Sage is experiencing? I wish all decisions in life were so easy!

Anyone who suggests that owning a professional football club is a sound financial investment is kidding themselves. Sounds like Tony is trying to convince himself that owning the club makes financial sense, that the networking benefits somehow offset the pouring of money into a loss-making business. It is an indulgence, nothing more, it is like the bloke trying to justify the purchase of his new boat by claiming he will recoup the money by all the savings on not having to buy fresh fish anymore!

If people were going to save the Fury they'd be turning up to games etc & they aren't, so why put your hand in your pocket for a fund when you have no intention of enjpying what you helped save ?

NQ Fury were always going to try & enter the league but the only reason I believe the FFA accepted them was to provide the geographical coverage for the WC bid/s. A good stadium in a sport mad town in an iconic area of Australia with good infrastructure etc etc, now unnecessary & therefore of little interest to the FFA. It is a poor indictment on them & perhaps a good thing that now the gloss of the WC won't cover the grime of the way business is done.

Let us spare a thought for Fury player Lorenzo Sippi whose family home in Tully was hit by Yasi, and with all roads blocked, he hs not been able to get back there.

I didn't say otherwise, I simply said that as long as Palmer wants to wear it, then GCU will survive, and that meant that it had to be Fury's future on the line (if Lowy went ahead with a ten team comp). Mind you, there has been plenty of evidence over the past two years that he is not necessarily over the moon about losing $5 mill per annum.