RIP Gold Coast United
RIP Gold Coast United
Well, the FFA showed their gutless side today by announcing that Western Sydney will be the 10th team in a 10 team completion next season. Not one mention of GCU and our fate.
I have been a season member for 3 seasons now and an active agitator to get palmer to either change his attitude or leave. I finally got my wish when the FFA stripped him of his license.
After todays press conference at Parklea it is obvious that the FFA have been planning this Western Sydney side from before they let Palmer go. They couldn’t have secured $8 Million in funding in the last month. The money that us tax payers have pored into this body is ridiculous
Now I for one have no problem with Western Sydney getting an A League team, it had to happen. But not in this way. How underhanded and clandestine have the FFA been? They never once said to our Community Model bid team that we had zero chance of getting a license. They just had to be honest and open with the Gold Coast public.
I fully expected this decision as did a number of other GCU fans. It doesn’t make it any easier though. I expected it after season 1 when I realized that Clive Palmer was not going to do anything to promote football on the Gold Coast.
How can a so called peak body be so two faced when dealing with the people who want to further the development of football in this country. The led our consortium on by drip feeding them bits and pieces and then totally ignoring the player exodus.
Now I know many of you GCU haters will bang on about poor crowds and that Gold Coast just doesn’t deserve a team. You are right, our crowds were absolutely terrible in size. But the passion from the small band who turned up was fantastic and I am glad I got to meet a great bunch of people.
There were many fans who just refused to turn up after the first “crowd cap” in game 6 or so of season 1. They turned their backs on the club and in turn the team. If they really loved the game they should have kept coming. What many of you don’t get is the utter disdain they have for Clive Palmer. His management of the club was like a cancer and people just kept self medicating by removing themselves from the disease.
To Brand has been terminally harmed in my opinion and our Save GCU campaign was too little too late for these people. I have no doubt with 7 months work we could get many people back and crowds of 6k to start next season. However that is not to be.
And now we have the peak body making a decision to start a team on their own back because they have no one interested in investing in the game, when for a fraction of the price they could have let Gold Coast United stay and use our existing infrastructure and team to gain the public’s trust.
The stunt of a press conference with Gillard was a joke. Buckley must stand down for his total incompetence and I am afraid that Frank Lowey must go as well. As much as I have been a Frank supporter and love his contribution to the game over many decades, he is simply too old to run it and his decision making is very poor.
April 04 2012 | A-League and Gold Coast United | No Comments »
