North Queensland Fury CEO Rabieh Krayem said yesterday: “What needs to happen out of any major decision or disaster is you reflect and take some positive out of it. I think for the football code it needs to review what’s happened to the Fury and expansion and take whatever learnings so it doesn’t make the same mistakes.”
Wise words from Krayem.
And while he and the Fury advisory board were yesterday calling for a review into the FFA’s decision to axe the Fury, more importantly, an independent inquiry is required into the whole process of the expansion club’s existence and ultimate failure.
This issue goes beyond North Queensland Fury. It is about the viability of the whole league and its clubs under the current ownership model.
Fury fans may say the club didn’t fail and were victims of the FFA’s unfair treatment. But the reality is the day former owner Don Matheson spoke about potentially pulling his money out of the Townsville-based club, its future looked grim.
Unfortunately Nathan Tinkler’s don’t grow on palm trees and it was never going to be easy for a club based in a Far North Queensland city of less than 200,000 to find a ‘white knight’ owner to foot the bill for the club and cover their losses.
The same must be said for any regional area the FFA might have considered expanding to. And that’s an important question about the future of the A-League and its current ownership model.
On the evidence of the Fury, in regional centres it can’t work and that’s damning for any hope the A-League has about expansion.
But expansion seems a long way off for the A-League right now. Surely right now it’s about consolidation.
But on the evidence of the current struggles of several franchises in big cities who are losing money and relying on the FFA’s financial support, it isn’t working.
In the long-term, it doesn’t appear sustainable and that’s the biggest issue facing the A-League.
To emphasise the point, there must be concerns about Fury’s fellow expansion club Gold Coast United too, who are simply relying on owner Clive Palmer’s money, as there’s little local support. If and when Palmer decides he’s had enough with his toy thing, it’s hard to see GCU continuing to exist.
As my colleague on The Roar, Adrian Musolino, explained yesterday: “Expanding into Gold Coast and North Queensland seemingly had nothing to do with significant market research or the overwhelming desire for an A-League franchise in those regions, but more to do with the deep pockets of Clive Palmer and Don Matheson respectively.”
Where’s the strategy?
Another important question is could the Fury have survived if its mooted community-based ownership model had been put into place if the FFA covered them for next season? We’ll never know now.
But an independent review could help us get a clearer idea.
Indeed, as Craig Foster and Les Murray said on Wednesday’s Shootout program on The World Game a lot of hard questions need to be asked of the FFA.
The strategy for A-League clubs and their sustainability appears to be flawed. And the FFA are short on solutions as the Fury example shows, despite NQF’s best attempts at a community-based model.
And that’s what needs to happen because the A-League is heading down a dangerous path, without any clear plan for escape.
After deciding not to invest the required $2m in NQF for next season, FFA CEO Ben Buckley said: “We need to concentrate our resources on the growth, promotion and stability of the entire Hyundai A-League competition.”
A good start would be putting that $2m to good use by initiating an independent review into the failure of the Fury and applying it for the sake of any hope of future expansion but more pertinently the current consolidation of the league.
It’s been a sad week for the A-League where, after a weekend which provided two fantastic and thrilling finals, the focus has quickly turned to the drama surrounding the axing of the Fury.
It’s a shame football has to take a backseat to these off-field issues, but the reality is they need to be addressed and the FFA can’t wash their hands and walk away.
The Fury’s failure shows the FFA needs to be proactive about the future of the A-League and re-evaluate its strategy. They owe the Fury that, at least.
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