Kilburn Football and Cricket Club could be forced out of its home as it struggles with unpaid debts
An inner-northern football club is facing eviction from its home base after struggling to pay off more than $22,000 in council rates and lease fees.
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An inner-northern football club is on the brink of being turfed out of its home as it struggles with crippling debt owed to the council, the Australian Taxation Office and its electricity provider.
Kilburn Football and Cricket Club must present a debt reduction plan to Port Adelaide Enfield Council by mid-September to help avoid being booted from its home at Lionel Ave, Blair Athol.
Councillors voted at a meeting on Tuesday night to give the Chics, who were established in 1923, more time to develop a detailed plan for paying the $22,000 they owed in lease fees and rates.
Kilburn finance director Daniel Parks would not reveal how much total debt the club was in.
But he feared the council would kick the club out if it could not prove it was on track to reduce the debt.
Parks said the committee had engaged an insolvency lawyer and an adviser to help devise a plan.
He also hoped sponsors would jump on board and give the club a cash injection to help shave off the debt.
“We’ve got a stay of execution (from the council),” Parks said.
“We’ve been given a little bit more time to sort out our finances.
“We are trying to rally around with some of our members who run businesses to see if we can get big lump sums off them.
“The only way we would be guaranteed a ‘yes, we are not going to terminate the lease’ is if we reduced our debt and made sure we had a good plan in place so this doesn’t happen again.
“We are trying to raise funds through our life members, too.”
In June, The Messenger revealed the club, which fields football teams in the Adelaide Footy League’s division four and fourth tier reserves, was grappling with debt and urged the local community to rally around it to help secure the long-term future.
Parks said the Chics had struggled to contend with rising electricity, Adelaide Footy League and Adelaide Turf Cricket Association fees, as well as council charges and rates.
The club stopped paying footballers ahead of the 2014 season because the costs were unsustainable.
But it suffered a mass exodus and endured a tough division three campaign five years ago when its average losing margin was more than 300 points.
The committee then asked players to raise about $15,000 a season – money that was given back to the club and some was used to pay 18 of the top A grade footballers.
Although Parks originally believed the debt would not force the club to close he said it was now “more reality now than it has ever been”.
“We are all very anxious at the moment,” Parks said.
“We know we’ve dropped the ball and things have got bad, debt-wise.
“But I believe we can trade and be in the black within two years.
“It will be the saddest day of my life (if the club shuts) and I wouldn’t know what to do.”
Port Adelaide Enfield Mayor Claire Boan said council staff had “ongoing conversations with the club since serious concerns were raised about their financial viability”.
She said no decision on the club’s future would be made until October
