Gold Coast United has reached the point of no return, with owner Clive Palmer engaging in a public war of words with the governing body, Football Federation Australia, coach Miron Bleiberg quitting after his farcical suspension, and the exodus of players beginning.
In the week since my last column, written in the wake of their lowest home crowd of the season, the club has self-imploded with Palmer doing the detonating.
From the appointment of a 17-year-old debutant as captain, the suspension of arguably their strongest asset, Bleiberg, who has subsequently quit the club, to James Brown kick-starting the player exodus by signing with the Newcastle Jets.
With Palmer reportedly meeting with the players today to discuss the future of the club, there appears to be little he can say to stop them from running to Coolangatta Airport and getting out of the rabble that is Gold Coast United.
After all, following his comments over the weekend, why should anyone hang around?
“I don’t even like the game,” Palmer told The Sunday Mail. “I think it’s a hopeless game. Rugby league’s a much better game.
“The club is a very small, insignificant portion of what I do. We’ve got over $20 billion of projects.”
And there, in a few quotes, is what is fundamentally flawed with Gold Coast United. It is Clive Palmer’s Gold Coast United, not Gold Coast’s Gold Coast United – and that’s always been the case.
Bleiberg has rightly resigned, telling the Courier-Mail “I’ll not be back”
“Clive can take my job but he took away my dignity – no one can take away my dignity.
“If Clive wanted to hurt me, he succeeded. If he didn’t mean to hurt me, he made a mistake.”
Ever since Palmer’s blustering entry into the league with brash comments of undefeated seasons, private jets and more, the club became an extension of his own ego and persona.
So why should the people of the Gold Coast care and commit to the club when their figurehead seemingly doesn’t?
It’s all downhill from here, surely – no coach, few players signed on beyond this season, what fans that remain surely questioning their loyalty to a club that is “insignificant” in the eyes of its owner, and with the governing body preparing to find any means necessary to kick them out of the competition.
Palmer’s licence agreement for Gold Coast United doesn’t expire till 2014, and despite his controversial comments, followed by the lukewarm response from the FFA, it appears the mining magnate isn’t ready to walk away without a fight.
“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 said.
“That’s the reality of it. They can say what they like … the A-League’s a joke. I don’t think I’ll ever talk to Ben again in my life, to be honest.”
If Palmer and Gold Coast United CEO Clive Mensink, Palmer’s partner in the mining world, decide they want to hang around, the FFA faces the challenging task of finding someway to either remove Palmer and Mensink from the club (but then who would want to takeover the damaged remains?) or remove the club from the competition.
The buck stops with Palmer and Mensink unless there is some legal recourse the FFA can call on.
Palmer seems to be holding out hope on moving the club out of its expensive Skilled Park renting agreement, which costs a reported $40,000 per match to the Queensland sate government (according to SBS’s The World Game), and into the council-owned Southport Tigers Rugby League Club ground.
According to The World Game, “Palmer is prepared to sink $250,000 into redeveloping the ground, which currently has just one stand – built at his own expense – into an A-League fit stadium with revamped change rooms and floodlights,” turning it into 5000-capacity stadium.
Not only does it help the bottom line, it’s a far more realistic size stadium for a club that at its last home game only filled six percent of Skilled Park (1723 in a 27,400-seat stadium).
But even if Palmer gets his way and Gold Coast United moves into Southport, his club’s brand is in tatters, with a series of own goals that has seen that club go from the 10,336 crowd that watched them defeat English Premier League side Fulham 2-1 at their birth to their current 3704 average or the 1723 that attended their last home game. Those who have stood by the club have every right to walk away after Palmer’s comments.
This current situation highlights the flaw in handing a license to Palmer: the club and, in many ways, the A-League’s future in Queensland’s second biggest region at the mercy of one man, who makes his fortune elsewhere and has little intimate knowledge or care of how the sport operates.
Now the FFA is paying the price for that mistake, with its expansion moves in tatters as Gold Coast follows the sorry path of North Queensland Fury.
With the Gold Coast Suns AFL club established and on the rise as they mature into the competition and marketplace, the Gold Coast Titans NRL club battling for their own renaissance, the Gold Coast Blaze NBL club a competitive summer opponent, and the possibility that Cricket Australia’s Big Bash League could expand into the Gold Coast, United appears to have little hope of surviving in a market that arguably can’t sustain all these clubs.
It was always questionable whether Gold Coast could sustain an A-League franchise. But once Palmer and co started on the path of tarnishing their own brand – no community engagement, setting incredibly unrealistic expectations, crowd caps, public war of words, internal bickering and more – they had no chance of rectifying given they were selling to a region as competitive and fickle as the Gold Coast.
Today the club is officially a basket case. They will claim the wooden spoon, as they were always destined to do when they failed to replace their departing big names at the end of last season with experience, relying far too heavily on youth. And the squabble over the future will only drive that promising youth to other more stable clubs.
To add insult to injury, Wednesday night’s rescheduled home match against league leaders, the Central Coast Mariners, looms as a further embarrassment; their record lowest crowd of 1658 surely in danger of being lowered.
If the FFA can convince Palmer to move on, then the priority switches to filling the void – keeping the A-League at 10 teams is vital at a time when the governing body is negotiating the next television rights deal, and western Sydney remains fertile land for the game.
This should be a motivator – two birds with the one stone. Easier said than done, yes, but essential for the league as it stands at the crossroads. There’s no alternative.
The damage is well and truly done on the Gold Coast. There is no going back.
In response to Palmer’s comments, Ben Buckley said, “I remind Clive that as a chairman and owner of a club, he has obligations to the competition, his fellow club chairman and investors in the other nine clubs, and to the game itself.”
Gold Coast had already let down the competition, the other nine clubs and the game itself before Palmer’s comments. The reality is it does so every time it plays at home and cameras beam pictures of empty grandstands across the country. As I wrote last week, that does untold damage to the A-League brand.
This, now, is beyond bad publicity. Gold Coast United and Palmer must go.
More opinion:
Mike Tuckerman: Say goodbye to Gold Coast United
Luke Doherty: A-League’s Palmer feud expected to drag on
David of Canberra
Guest
point taken ... but the Canberra United brand is now pretty strong, thanks to the W-League. As long as no-one suggests reviving the Cosmos brand!
AL
Guest
Yes, any man with that hair style and that hair colour should not be allowed within 50km of a football stadium. Here also is an abreviated version of the Blieburg v Palmer converstion. Blieburg to Palmer " I quit: Palmer to Blieburg " You cant quit becuase I fire you" , repeat x 100 times or reverse coversation for differnt conversation.
The Cattery
Roar Guru
joe I don't disagree with what you're saying, I'm just relaying what I recall reading at the time of the Sydney Rovers bid.
joe blackswan
Guest
I would have thought Greater Western Sydney as a name is a good throw net over a large population and area, and thus fan base....certainly helps establish rivalry/division with the incumbent team's fan base. Whilst it is a mouth full, I think AFL did well here.
Football United
Guest
i actually wouldn't mind olympic getting in as they have a fairly sound buisness plan and youth development (same for south melbourne on that mater) but only after a new west sydney club is established first. fans in western sydney had reasons for not joining olympic previously and thus i think it would be good to give them a a option of either a new club with a new identity or joining up with a established team with strong heritage.
Stevo
Guest
Yep, this is exactly the tone of Foz's article in the smh yesterday. It's mainly FFA's fault - poor Clive was sold a pup by Ben and Frank! Expect Ben to get a hammering and Clive to be portrayed as a victim of FFA ineptitude.
Football United
Guest
would love to see a canberra team go up next as west sydney hasn't got it's act together but by god, NOT ANOTHER UNITED!.
John
Guest
I've been writing this for some time, the Gold Coast is a gonner. Infact I predict that the Gold Coast is not the only club that is going to fold in the next couple of years. There's the financial and previous ownership issues for Wellington and Brisbane, Central Coast seems to struggle every now and again for the dollar, Melbourne Hearts' crowds are not exactly getting any better, and Perth seems to have its on and off again administration concerns. If the Gold Coast folds (excuse me), WHEN the Gold Coast folds, this will bring the league to 9 teams (4 weekly games). If for whatever reason just another two clubs face uncertainly and also collapse, the A-league may find itself in a situation where it can only offer 3 weekly games. This is hardly comforting to a broadcaster such as FOX. If this was to occur, the A-league may find itself in the position where it too may fold and become exinct. It may well be a case of RIP A-league.
Johnno
Guest
W\Will Tinkler be the next man to get bored of soccer and will Tony sage join him. Sage wants to have a perth NRL team, and Tinkler owns the knights now already. A-league needs to re model itself and find more responsible ways to give out licences.
Livofan
Guest
The Cattery - The FFA need to change their business model. It is not sustainable. They also need to rely on big $$$ fromt he next tv deal. Here is hoping they get it!
Livofan
Guest
Clive Palmer, Gold Coast United Chairman: "I don't even like the game (football), I think it's a hopeless game. Rugby league's a much better game." George Giannaros, Sydney Olympic fc President: "I love the game, my club, our community and our fans" That is the difference guys. Yet we seem intent on judging many of these traditional football clubs with dated stereotypes. What they are offering us are grassroots community clubs, run by fans game, for the fans of the game. Different to the franchise model. And as far as Olympic goes, increasingly attracting fans from varying backgrounds. Strangely enough it is a sense of history that these clubs have that is attracting new fans.
Johnno
Guest
SBS are now mates with the A-league why i don't know but seem to have had basically peace detonate that they will not rip into the A-league and say what they really think about the A-leauge. So now only doing watered down nice stuff rather than getting negative and telling the truth about what they think about the A-league.
striker
Guest
Yeah out of context my back side, he knows everyone has seen what an fool he has made of himself and Gold Coast so he has cheap shots like that go away we dont need people like him in our game.
The Cattery
Roar Guru
Some really interesting tweets from Fozz the past hour or so: "Great to have Clive on, but all of this has absolutely nothing to do with Palmer. His situation is merely a symptom." and "Very interesting comments from Clive Mensink about Palmer being taken out of context in relation to the game & wider administrative issues" If I don't know any better, I'd think Fozz is going to be more sympathetic to Clive than he will be to BB
Matthew Skellett
Guest
You know I'd never thought I 'd say this but I really really hope that the end-stage results of morbid obesity come soon to Mr Palmer and in public view as well :-)
striker
Guest
Yeah you guys were the kings of robbery after 50 years you dont have one club or a ground that you own and now you want to be given a A-League licence, i support football and have accepted this is the best way forward even if its not perfect its alot better run than the old NSL, at least all games are shown live with FOX and most of the mainstrem media show highlights, even the today show are giving tickets to this years final which hows the games is going in the right direction, the best thing for Olympic would be to join forces with the old clubs and support a western sydney team where they wont be judged by ethnicity.
Griffo
Roar Guru
Having private owners elsewhere in the world might work, but in Australia, where there’s a population of 22M to share 4 football codes, it’s far too risky. I would think having a relatively small population in a saturated sports market would make the private owner/consortium model just as viable... Member-based ownership (subsidised by the FFA), equitable stadium deals and tonnes of community involvement are 3 key ingredients to make Football work in this country…not the bank balance (and whim) of a cranky mining magnate. ...but I also agree with your three points, except for the FFA clause to some degree. If the FFA have little money initially, then it would be hard to subsidise many clubs (unless the media deal was astronomical), and wouldn't that imply the community model at the beginning is only part the answer and need private funding as well? I would like to see a community kick-start a club with memberships, but what is a viable number of memberships to own/run/upgrade a stadium; employ people for football operations; a team and support staff; transport costs; gear and all of that? I know sponsorships help of course but to me over time most clubs will become membership supported. That would be ideal for all A-League clubs, but it is a long game.
Johnno
Guest
you go away. You move on buddy. Have you looked at the business plan of sydney olympic I have striker. More state government money to belmore sports ground to, hard core supporters, why wouldn't olympic or sth melbourne be a hit striker. You have so much faith in the A-league current models, yet they are many fo the clubs going broke or barely surviving stop being a true believer striker you deny reality that the A-league has to change it's business models and operations to survive, coz what they are doing now is not working striker.
striker
Guest
Johnno go away with your Sydney Oympic crap everyone knows it has no chance getting in the A-League and i am an old NSL supporter, move on buddy.
The Cattery
Roar Guru
Your post gets me thinking, could the 10th team come in with, say, the backing of either the NSWPL or the ACT comp, as a bit of a change from the single owner model.