“The A-League is a joke.” There, in a nutshell, is the problem of getting into bed with the devil.
We talk about the need for football people to run our clubs and Clive Palmer has made it palpably clear he is not one of those.
Palmer’s outburst in yesterday’s Sunday Mail may have been extraordinary, but surely it was also calculated.
It was as considered as the decision to appoint a 17-year-old rookie as captain was calculated.
Just as the slashing of the wage bill at the end of last season and the signing of players to one-year contracts was calculated.
Just like getting offside with a proud and clearly competent coach like Miron Bleiberg was calculated. Did Palmer want Bleiberg to quit as coach of the Robina side? I think so.
Why else would he have publicly belittled a coach who led his team into successive finals series?
Perhaps because he thinks the A-League is “a joke” and men like Bleiberg are expendable.
“I don’t even like the game,” Palmer told the Sunday Mail’s resident football journalist Marco Monteverde. “I think it’s a hopeless game. Rugby league’s a much better game.”
So why invest time and money into the sport in the first place? Is it because Palmer the businessman thought it was a sure-fire way to score points in football-mad Asia?
Or like the archetypal playground bully, did Palmer simply feel his status as Queensland’s richest man would buy him instant sporting success, only to turn around and throw a tantrum because things haven’t gone his way?
How else can United make a statement saying Bleiberg has been “disrespectful,” only for the club’s owner to say two days later he thinks football is a “hopeless game?”
One rule for Bleiberg and another rule for Palmer? Absolutely.
Because Palmer has always wanted to run his football club as an oligarchy. And he’s always been frustrated at the thought of having to play by somebody else’s rules.
One gets the sense that when the FFA politely dismissed some of his less helpful suggestions – the football “State of Origin” idea springs immediately to mind – Palmer was genuinely shocked.
And while it may be cliché to suggest Palmer doesn’t hear the word “no” too often, surely there’s some truth behind it.
Because every time Palmer has been criticised for the way he runs Gold Coast United, he has reacted by doing or saying something even more outlandish.
The only question remaining is why?
Why deliberately antagonise and provoke such a backlash if there are still two years of his A-League licence to run?
Having decided Gold Coast United is no longer his preferred plaything, is Palmer simply burning all his bridges before relinquishing control?
That’s what I think is happening. Palmer said it himself.
“The club is a very small, insignificant portion of what I do,” he said yesterday.
I can’t see one of those projects being Gold Coast United once the 2011-12 campaign is over. Whether FFA can afford to take over at yet another club is another matter entirely.
For now, the competition has a real problem on its hands.
Clive Palmer has made it clear he has no interest in the A-League.
Football fans – starting with what’s left of United’s support – should make it clear we have no interest in having him.
Because the sooner Palmer is hounded out of the A-League, the quicker we can move on from the sorry mess that is this club inexorably bound for extinction.
More opinion:
Adrian Musolino: It’s time to cut Gold Coast United loose
Luke Doherty: A-League’s Palmer feud expected to drag on
Mary byrne
Guest
When Clive Palmer realisea that soccer is real football,and requires enormous skill and fitness. It is not all about him. The Gold Coast has never been overwhelmed with any code of football. Perhaps Clive can encourage fans to come to the game and cheer for their team, its soul-destroying for players to do their best in an empty stadium.
PeterK
Guest
Thanks, NF. At least GCU has the money-backing we did not have! I believe that GCU can be saved if FFA think a bit more clearly than they did when they: 1) allowed Fury in before we were IMO really ready (and I said so, in writing, at the time -- but I missed only one match, and that by being in Europe at the time!) 2) told Fury we had TWO more seasons of financial support (but hadn't seen the Roar's financial problems coming) 3) initially allowed Heart and Victory to take part in the Vic KO Cup (without having foreseen the reasons given later for withdrawing that permission) 4) announced that an FFA (KO) Cup would take place. I can understand FFA's reasons for reversing each of these decisions, but my gripe is that In all these cases it seems to me that due diligence was barely thought about! I do so hope that FFA has learned something over the years. It seems we pay them enough, and I reckon Clive is not used to dealing with such behaviour.
NF
Guest
Peter The Fury were hard done by speaking as a casual fan of association football up here in North QLD. The Gold Coast is just shocking what occur no supporter of any code should go through should go through what Fury & now GCU supporters are going through at the moment.
PeterK
Guest
Thanks Izzy.
PeterK
Guest
Kasey, please give us Fury Fans some credit for turning up at all in that tumultuous final season! The writing was well and truly on the wall for us, and every match felt like a farewell to the team. We lost no match in the first half of even that final season by more than one goal (which yes I know is still a loss)! I suspect that even the final season average was excellent if calculated as a percentage of population! And we were working hard on a Community Ownership scheme which was coming along well -- FFA told us they'd support us financially for TWO more seasons, but then pulled the pin after just ONE -- before we'd had time to put it fully together. I'm happy enough with the veracity of your figures (and I think the dreadful 1003 was for a midweek game) and don't see Izzy's comment as at all revisionary.
PeterK
Guest
So do I, Griffo. I don't think many realise the huge damage that the demise of GCU would have on the local population. And that takes into account the damage currently continuing! I'm a Fury fan from NQ, and one day we'll be back, but I can't see it happeneing for a very long time now. Had we not been allowed to enter so quickly, we might by now be about ready for a really strong and lasting bid. As it is, local support will be very wary now. I suspect that an "Apprenticeship League" needs to be set up -- professional players and coaching staff, but with much lower costs for travel and stadiums. Then applications for "promotion" can be made rather like the entry into the fourth tier from regional leagues in England. The travel costs can be lowered by having at least the first half of the season in regions.
Izzy
Guest
I still think North Queensland were a good team to have in the League.
Kasey
Guest
North Queensland Fury averaged 4,245 in their final season, with a high of 7,195 and a low of 1,003 for an aggregate of 63,681: Honestly, what is it with football fans in this country viewing the past with such rose tinted glasses? Ask any devotee of the NSL and every game was apparently a quality fixture filled with players who had superb touch on a billiard table surface roared on by a phalanx of passionate fans. The reality of the past and the revisionist history penchant of football fans in this country is an odd combination IMO.
Axelv
Guest
I'm going to contact Palmer via twitter and offer my services as a manager to get the community and fans on his side and how best to manage his club, I'm not fussy and am willing to work for him for a small fee, $1 million a year will do...
Soccer Fan
Guest
If you actually all read what Clive said, it mirrors what a lot of Australian soccer and A-League fans have been saying all along. A) Ben Buckley is a dud CEO B) Get A-League onto free to air tele C) What is the FFA doing to promote the game. Clive is staying until the A-League falls over in other words, get used to it.
Midfielder
Guest
Brillant
Izzy
Guest
I honestly believe that North Queensland Fury should be brought back. They had decent crowds of 6-7000 and the fans were passionate. The team was also very likeable. Gold Coast only stayed because they had the backing of Palmer. Everything else was a disaster.
Ben of Phnom Penh
Guest
quite a few are governed by a stable of relatives
Bondy
Guest
How many F.A.s around the globe are relatively stable ,or run by stable governance ?
Bondy
Guest
I'd better correct myself if it's Zane Bojack here's his breif . (http://www.abc.net.au/profiles/content/s2248937.htm ) .
Bondy
Guest
Fussball . No she is female ( the interviewer) I had a women ring me today and her name was Dane I politely asked her name again during the phone conversation, I thought she was saying Dame but know it was Dane . That's strange in one day I've heared two females with what I would consider male names . Half an hour till the Rumble in the Jungle .
Mike Tuckerman
Expert
I stand corrected if it wasn't Zane but he usually does all the Gold Coast radio.
Stevo
Guest
Yep, when I saw the Indian early collapse I turned to the missuss and said it was all over. But football is a game that's not over till the final whistle - just like last years grand final.
Rusty0256
Guest
Or as Winston Churchill once nearly said, "Never, in the field of World Football, was so much written, by so many, about a football club supported by so few"
Fussball ist unser leben
Roar Guru
Bondy - it's funny you should say that. It's not just HAL fans, who are being drawn to the HAL. We are slowly picking up viewers from the unlikeliest places. Last night NRL journalist, Phil Rothfield, who has been prominent in his disdain for Football & the HAL had this to say about the AUFC v SFC on Twitter: Phil Rothfield @BuzzRothfield "Never ever thought I'd turn off the cricket for soccer game. Carn Sydney FC. the cricket is terrible. at least (the HAL match) is a decent contest. This is actually very exciting. Carn Sydney." I nearly fell off my chair when I read these Tweets!