Battlestations in Brisbane as Roar prepare for showdown with owners

What is it that makes these guys cling on? Simply, they are not smart businessmen. They do not know when to cut the loss but keep escalating their commitment. They wish someone would buy. However, the potential buyers do not agree on $20m. If MV is worth 15m, BR is worth only 10m. Simply, MV has a bigger membership number. One of the TV companies has folded last year with nothing in return. I do not want to tell the name. There were buyers wanting to pay around half a billion. However, the owner wanted to get the loss back. Eventually, the TV company had to stop broadcasting. Simple. Soccer clubs are billionaires' grown-up-toy. Clive had one. Tinkler had one.

Mid - I think we should close this debate.it is getting boring.if you think that some business man or group with millions of dollars invested in a franchise is going to listen to a suggestion put forward by a well intentioned fan group then so be it. In my experience in football over the last 50 years I don't ever recall anything like that occurring and I doubt very much if in today's financial world of professional sport it has any better a chance of succeeding than before.Keep up the good work Cheers jb

JB You are jumping to many steps forward. The business plan you speak of is maybe step number 5 which you help the club do. Step 1 Get a small at first group together, and write essentially an overview of the potential and detail some of the major floors with the past management. 5 to 8 pages only Step 2 Offer and suggest to the club have a fans type committee that can talk to the club on behalf of fans. Step 3 Widen the group and via facebook and the fans forum ask for suggestions from fans. Step 4 to 7 Met regularly offer suggestions built up trust and ask to be involved in the clubs business plan preparation or strongly suggest they do one. JB my experience is a clam logical approach at times like this is welcome by those in charge... yelling for their heads normally does not open to many doors.

Mid = Thank you for the reply and your interesting suggestions which, if you take away the flowery rhetoric, comes down to exactly what I have been saying. Roar lack, and IMO have always lacked , a man at the top of the tree with the necessary wherewithal to run a professional football team. What you are actually suggesting ,a group putting together a "business plan", is all very well ,in fact could be construed as a first step towards a supporter owned and run football identity which is a great idea in theory but has little or no chance of ever working,you know it and I know it Now to put together such a "business plan" one would have to have access to financials over the last 11 year (and further) and info as to how millions of dollars have dissipated into the situation that exists today. This would build a picture of mis-management practices and would allow these "new " planners to make the changes that have to be made to stop the internal fiscal haemorrhaging that appears to have been going unabated for far longer than the life of the HAL.That is where the Roar situation differs from other HAL franchises and in fact could be put back to the FFA 's original entry requirements.and weaknesses contained therein. Please continue to offer suggestions but as I said to you before when discussing Brisbane Roar please dig much deeper into the history of the franchise before building an "escape route" for potential saviours. To plan something better you have to know what caused the problems in the first place. Cheers jb

JB This is much better the actual issue is the owner has appointed beyond poor managers and given the pressure his business has been under not paid to much attention relying on poor appointments to turn it around for him... Beyond this a lack of local knowledge about how Queensland and specifically operates. This I can assure you is outside the power of FFA to step in other than when a major issue hits. JB a lot of my working life has been involved in change management and corporate restructures and at times how to bring them about. If I may offer a small bit of advise that based on my experience gets noticed ... action is not instant ... but action does happen... Lets say you and other Roar fans, use your combined knowledge and prepare a detailed business plan / proposal on running the club and in the report point out the past errors...make it look very professional, ensure you stay away from personal attacks on individuals, as free from bias as you can make it and most importantly make it dispassionate.. Then having opened up a credible line of communication sent reasonably regular updates on improvements and whats being done wrong. Your passion for the club is shown in the communication process and that should be mentioned in passing but don't make it a big deal. Ensure copies are sent to as many as possible but by hand delivery courier to the big B. I honestly deep down in my soul believe with a decent management team, you guys will be one of the biggest clubs in the league.... Back to my comments to Waz ... sorry mate if I went to far but you need to direct you energy to something workable.

Mid -you appear to understand what Chop and I have been saying ,him on what I would call recent times,my own viewpoint over a longer period but,and it is a huge but, in 11 years of the HAL Roar have been beset by what can only be described as poor management decision making and I am quite sure if they could find such a "white knight" as you describe they would be eternally grateful but unfortunately they appear to have run into the proverbial "brick wall" awaiting for that "saviour" to turn up. Money, or lack of money,appears to be the real root of the problem so it could be said they need someone with deep fiscal management knowledge plus some man-management skills in assessing footballers and how they are to be handled. Guys of this calibre are not easily found and the recent trend in putting ex Socceroos into management positions in clubs and media positions is a strategy flirting with danger,for most of these players have been full time football players and I expect perhaps only a few of them have got any real experience in fiscal or man management skills and so we have clubs in the straits that they find themselves. Cheers jb

JB & Chop JB you have hinted and Chop you have given examples ... it seems from what your saying the management away from the stadium is poorly lead and lacks hhhhhmmmmm rrrrr lets call it street smarts to make it work.... If I can offer some solace ... Perth Glory were hopeless off the park and got a very capable CEO in and they have totally turned it around. At the Mariners we hired a former Roar manager and he near sent us broke. However we have a new CEO for about two years and he is turning us around. Most important was the owner came and talked to many locals and also held a number of fans forums and did a fans podcast for over an hour. He essentially told us things we did not want to here but also had a plan which I gotta say is on his timeline ahead of were it was expected. If the B's appoint the right management things can turn around... to early to pass judgement either way on the new guy but lets hope he can work it out.. Also a warning from a fellow suffer ... TWG are on your case and will say and write anything yesterdays article about teh club about to fall over reminded me of what they used to do to us... expect more to follow .

JB See duel reply to both you and Chop below

You are right mid something is amiss in the financials. The one big factor is that the Roar own nothing. They may have players on contract and shirts and equipment but everything else is leased. The training grounds, the offices, the phone systems and the cars they drive. When any of the Bakries Group comes to Brisbane they stay in hotels and eat at the best restaurants. The only items that bring in any money are football related such as merchandise (from rented premises), gate takings (from rented stadium), memberships (after tiketek takes their cut) sponsorships (which are sometimes in kind rather than cash) and of course their allotment from the A League of $2.4m. Costs are added to by the travel levy by the state government of $3.50 per head on match days. So even if they get 17,000 gates they have $59,500.00 travel levy. I believe even when the make kids free to games that they still have to pay the levy. As Waz has intimated prior the levy applies even if they can get a super deal on a stadium. You have recently heard the cost at Ballymore for the offices and training ground is $300,000.00 per season and there is no information about any on costs such as electricity ,phones and maintenance. That is where the mariners have been smarter by introducing some income producing real estate into the mix as well as being able to onsell players and receive some transfer fees. At Roar we just stuff up their payments and contracts and allow quality players to slip out of the door. Of course all of this is fixable but it needs hands on management to keep the tight rein that is required. It must be impossible to do from a distance of 3 or 4 thousand kilometres away especially when you have employed some real dimwits in strategic positions.

Mid - As you have mentioned my name I feel obliged to answer. First of all your "average attendance" figure for Roar matches is just a trifle high in fact,last season they averaged 12,850 and the season before ,11,650,so you are roughly about 40% higher in your assessment figure than you should be so that could affect your calculations quite considerably. As I have told you before I have an interest in Roar though I would not call myself a "fan" for I cannot attend their games regularly.What does shock me is that over the years I have had an interest, they, and their predecessor identity, have gone from being probably the richest club in Australian football to the almost regular state of chaos we witness today season after season. Now to use your analogy,in that time their average crowd has probably jumped from around 3000 per game to the aforementioned 12,500 but so too has their costs spiralled, and might I suggest to you apparently their costs have grossly outstripped their income resulting in today's situation. Now this is not a reflection on the players and their on field attainments for as you know they have had their successes but that success,though it has reflected in growing crowd attraction, has certainly not been matched by their management operations and therein lies the problems being faced today. I have my own thoughts on how this has happened,but this is not the forum for heavy discussion on that opinion,but may I say ,if you want to diagnose the problem you will have to dig much deeper than you can, based on media stories of todaty. Cheers jb

Bob Please mate the same argument applies to you... you don't have the contract so you don't know how FFA could kick out the B's. What I do understand is this a written contract is always open to question of what key sections mean and its the courts that decide this. You are kinda arguing the past 300 years of contract law prescient and usage should be ignored because of not sighting the contract.... that is simply not true ... no matter how much you want it to be different any half decent lawyer could tie this up in the courts for months if not years. Do you want a crazy example .... a fellow borrowed from the bank in the 80's $ 250, 000, and refused to pay it back, so the bank tried to enforce their legal rights i.e mortgage... The bloke at court said he brought the manager lunch on the day the loan was granted and the cost of the lunch and drinks was agreed by the manager to be off set against the loan. It took the bank almost 5 years to recover their money ... What you should be doing as I asked a while ago ... is what is needed to make the Roar successful.

classic Bill Murray

I've said I don't know the specifics of this issue and neither does anyone on this forum. But we do have several cases where the FFA has intervened to terminate a Licence: Con Constantine (Newcastle Jets), Clive Palmer (Gold Coast United), Nathan Tinkler (Newcastle Jets). I know Clive Palmer immediately challenged the FFA's action in the Supreme Court of Queensland and sought an injunction to prevent the FFA's action but he lost. So you are right, I don't know the fact of this case. But I have followed previous cases and in the 3 instances when the FFA has terminated a licence agreement, the FFA's action has held firm so I have to assume they have strong legal advice on when they can act and when they can't act.

I asked earlier, which got nil replies presumably because people couldn't pick a fight, as to why the Bakeries are staying around? If they put $4m in last November, and another $500k in March, another $300k for ballymore already this year and now it looks like another $2m might be required .. how is that sensible? The Roar was rumored to have cost them $20m this time last year so add on anotehr $8m and that is $28m which can only be recouped by a sale of the business. Victory were valued recently at something like $15m (correct me if I'm wrong but think im in the right area) so what do the Bakeries see happening to HAL clubs values in the near future to make all this worthwhile? there has to be a reason as they are not stupid businessmen! Has the FFA got a similar streaming deal to the J-League up its sleeve? Certainly its not the domestic deal, so what is it that makes these guys cling on??????????????

Midfielder & Nemis - you have not given fact, you have stated, restated and restated over and over again, an opinion on how it might play out. Undoubtedly this is a legal minefield to step in to but unless one of you has seen site of the actual Franchise agreement or whatever its called between the FFA and The Bakrie Group then you are speculating on how it will play out and not stating FACT which is annoying when you accuse other people of not stating facts or not being lawyers, where are your facts and are you lawyers? there is a reason for the FFA's inaction and we may never know what it is (we can guess) but whatever it is, it isn't helping football in QLD and I say that as an interested watcher of BRFC, not a fan.

How much do you believe though because Steadfast were resigned before Cobb for a 1 year front of shirt deal, (that was announced on their website, I'm a customer) and Pauls have also signed on again. Someone (was or jb I think) posted figures that suggested Roars shirt sponsorship was amongst the lowest in the league, something like 30% lower than Nix, WSW, and VIC

JB, Waz and other Roar fans. Question on the Roar... On paper the Roar should not be in financial trouble. They average close to 17K per game, have over $ 800, 000 in sponsorship as I understand it and the current owners have invested a lot of money. Pushing away from the FFA should kick out the B's which as I have explained below IMO is impossible as of today. But what is it about doing business in Queensland that makes it so hard to break even.

Oh gawd. After his riff about the Australian Constitution, Midfielder has now reverted to accusing people of not being football fans, and rather being "spies" for other codes. This is nothing new. Mid used to say you could tell the posters who were "AFL spies" because they had really really good spelling and grammar (I'm not making this up). He finishes with the profound: "go back to the NSL..."

This must be a sensitive topic for this post to be in moderation...

If the TWG article is correct and the 'Roar' are on the brink of financial collapse, then we do not have to wait too much longer for the FFA to step in. Why? Well as I've stated a number of times, the FFA could not (or would not? No one is clear on this) step in until Tinkler declared the entity that controlled the Jets licence, Hunter Sports Group, as insolvent. Whatever entity that owns the licence of the Roar is named, the moment they can no longer finance operations and declare formerly that they cannot do so, is the time the FFA will step in. In Tinklers case (IIRC) he borrowed money at least once to keep cashflow going but at some point there was no longer any cashflow to keep going; should the Bakries no longer have a life-line in financing the club, then that's it. I don't know enough legally about trading while being insolvent, but it may be the Bakries are holding out in hope of selling the club and recouping as much as they can. At the time it was obvious to us that we were on life support; felt helpless that there was nothing that was being done or we could do to end the situation so the club and community could move on. Again I feel for Roar fans as this sorry saga drags on and on and on. I sincerely hope we are close, even sometime this week, that the Bakries wave the white flag, the FFA removes the licence, and begins the process of righting the Roar ship and kick-starting the process of the next phase of ownership for Brisbane Roar FC.