Brisbane Roar's future uncertain as managing director quits

Chopper above and couple of others here and elsewhere pointing at players. Best ignored I know, but I'd justy as soon try to stop a steamroller than watch it roll out of control.

Can't see anyone is knocking the players here. It's the management and egos of a few that were unwilling to engage with reality and getting their hands dirty that most seem to be venting on.

That's right Lionheart. Stay strong, and stay positive. We are Brisbane Roar.

Something terribly wrong when one of the most successful clubs can't make money.

I know of someone who has connections in the club. According to the source, the club is in a bit of a mess mainly due to the $2.5M loss. Also the new coach is already hired but he is not allowed to say who. We'll have to wait until the club makes an announcement. To me this whole saga is a concern. I hope they don't sacrifice in the area of recruiting good players. So it turns out I was on the $ when I speculated last week that Stead was no longer retained as the 'guardian of football' (if this article is correct on KS being offered only the role of a fitness coach). My suspicion is that the new coach will also take on some or all of the TD duties as well. We'll have to wait and see.

Not quite true Bes. For the first MV game, mid week, recently they ran a series of short advertisements on radio. I heard them on MMM, which is all day rugby (both varieties) on weekends, and they now even have a guest football commentator on for a short while. You would recall that we had over 10K at that mid-week game, very good. So advertising does work, and the MMM audience is probably smart targeting by the Roar too. More of it please. And Roar needs to get active with these radio shows, give them a weekly interview (player or coach) or guest appearance on their shows. Broncos coach has weekly press conferences, Roar has to at least match that. I am very annoyed with our local Brisbane media, who barely give Roar and the HAL a mention. The Courier Mail's Newscorp is a part owner of the Broncos, so they run an agenda with rugby league, but I don't understand TV. They all just ignore our club, and I'm not sure that the Roar can do much about it, other than what I've just suggested above. I can't agree with some of the comments above, about management being the cause of this year's results. Certainly our off-season signings were below standard, but injuries have been a major contributor this year. I recall several games with 7 or so first choice players out. Any team will have trouble with that, although we could have bought injury replacement like Sydney. We also had some tough luck this year, with weather and mid-week games contributing to lower crowds, plus no home game in the FFA Cup. I don't know what's going on with Roar management, but Dobson has not seemed to me, from a fans perspective, to be much chop. My impression was that we were being fed stuff, any stuff, made up stuff, just to put an issue to bed. The Mike Mulvey sacking, I thought, was always going to comeback and bite him. I don't think he'll be hard to replace, or I hope he's not anyway. As for Ken Stead, I don't know. I felt proud that our club had a philosophy, and am still wrapped in the youngsters we have coming through, playing our philosophy. I'm now quite deflated, and worried, that we're just going to dump it all. Whatever they are doing, priority one must be to sign a coach and hurry up with player selection for next season. There's a great future ahead for the Roar, they'll be around winning a few for a long time yet. Let's not get too carried away with these moments of disarray we think we see.unfolding in front of us right now. Stay strong.

Gold.

I understand Roar have a plan to increase marketing spend starting on Monday ... but only so they can announce further savings by cutting Marketing back at the end of the week. Simple logic really.

I can only assure any other states interested onlookers, that one area Brisbane certainly won't be cutting costs (saving ;-) on is advertising and marketing..... .....because since about Series 2 - there has been NONE! Not even any. Not anywhere. Nada, zip, zero. Unless you are already a fan and cruise the football sites, you seriously would not know Brisbane Roar exists.

I think the long term contracts was the Bakries envisaging the gate increasing exponentially. Who would think after all that success for so long that the gate would platea at 20 K ? ;)

Lol.

Whilst they didn’t qualify for the second stage, they did make the groups and picked up a couple of wins. That and playing in front of some of Asia’s biggest audiences should alone not result in the $2m+ losses that are being reported. ACL Prize money is still a pittance of what it should be.

"strenuously denying that cuts were on the way." I think you'll find cuts are called "savings" these days ;)

Not much to add to the above though not necessarily in agreement with all of it. The Courier Mail have reported about a 'leaked' document thinking it's genuine? That's not their criteria for printing information. The players on long term deals happened at least two years ago. Those players won a double last year. The Bakries appear to have been tight - fiscally prudent - whatever. I agree whatever happens next has to involve spending money rather than cutting budget. In terms of marquees I have no issue with Broich and McKay as our marquees. Smart recruitment across all levels is what is required. Smarter advertising and marketing. I hope the rest of the rumours I've come across worse than just Dobson leaving are just that. Rumours.

Looked good for the Roar initially with a rich organisation like the Bakries coming in,but I believe they came in at a fortuitous time, the Ange success period. This tended to mask over what the Bakries were doing management wise, or should we say what they weren't doing and what was their plans for the Roar. Anybody who knows anything about one the A-League and two the Brisbane sporting market,knows that the Bakries are tight with there money for a supposed billionaire group. Regarding first the A-League,whilst other clubs have strengthened their squads,the Roar have during the Bakries period, relied mainly on the players that brought Ange success. This leads onto the Brisbane sporting market, which is a highly competitive one where you need to make yourself visible above the mob. Maybe they thought that winning Premiers plates and Grand finals would pull in the punters and to a point judging by the increase in membership,yes,but it's not enough for a sport that has not been visible on a professional level in the city till the Roar came along and the Socceroos gaining a higher profile throughout the sporting community. Overseas football yes,but locally until recent years no. To tap into that overseas football interest(as it is elsewhere in Australia) whoever owns the Roar need to dip into their pockets and fork out for a "known" marquee, to appeal to the majority of football fans in Brisbane ,who still follow the overseas clubs and of course the casual sporting fan spoiled for choice in Brisbane. Following on from that combined with a winning culture a little advertising of "The Roar" would not go astray. Other sporting clubs are highly visible in Brisbane in this respect,the Roar is invisible. Seems from recent events then that their is a major sea change going on in the minds of the Bakries organisation regarding the Roar,with several stark realisations staring them in the face. Whatever decisions they make,cost cutting should not be amongst them, in fact the opposite is needed in Brisbane.

Too many people sitting happily in their own comfort zone. The club lost the drive to succeed and the team thought they only had to turn up to win. It all started by giving too many players long term contracts and can be seen now by the deadwood they cannot get rid of. Fortunately the management team were not on long term contracts and so the largesse has been cut. The question is has it been cut deep enough or too deep?

Its ok Waz, just a bit of cost cutting. I expect Chris Fong to be announced as player/coach today and he will also be answering the phones, polishing the boots, washing the jerseys and doing the media. Clearly things aren't happy at roar hq...a player clean out next?

It's pretty hard to make sensible comment on this one given the lack of information available but irrespective of that clearly there is a major crisis going on at Roar and the only question is how much control have the owners got? A few things don't add up - The Courier Mail seem to have their hands on a document supposedly circulated to potential investors (again? after they were given the heads-up on Mulveys sacking) stating both massive losses and massive cut backs; and they seem so convinced it was genuine they published and yet anyone that's sold or sought investment in a business knows you don't release that level of detail until quite late in negotiations. So is it accurate? who knows, Chris Fongs denial may be true and it may not be but that's not enough to snuff out rumours ir make fans feel easy; if the document looks genuine but is in fact a fake then questions need to be asked over its origin. The Bakries have had a reputation as "absentee owners" leaving the day-day running of the business to the managers, clearly that has changed and it looks like they've stepped back in, put their hands back on very firmly and worryingly, they didn't like what they saw. The question now is - how bad is this?