Michael McGuire: It’s hard not to be concerned about Adelaide United’s direction after this season
Given Adelaide United coach Marco Kurz’s goals appear to be winning games and improving players, you wonder what club chairman Piet van der Pol’s are, Michael McGuire asks?
Opinion
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IS it too late? Probably. Definitely in fact. But as the final whistle went on Sunday to put Adelaide United through to play Perth on Friday night in week two of the A-League finals, the manifest absurdity of the club’s decision to ditch coach Marco Kurz was revealed in all its naked stupidity.
But as the players celebrated the thought crept in: “They must see how stupid they have been. They have to go to Kurz and apologise. Tell them they got it wrong and ask him to stay.’’
Then the camera landed on Kurz, gesturing up to the Hindmarsh main stand, and (I’m no lip-reader) appearing to scream “F — k you’’.
I’m not a mind-reader either, but it’s hard not to believe the intended recipient of all that pent-up emotion was club chairman Piet van der Pol, who decided Kurz was not the man to take the club forward despite obvious evidence that he is very good at his job.
There is an expression in sport that no individual is bigger than the club. And it’s a good rule. It helps keep egos in check.
Kurz, of course, is not bigger than Adelaide United, but he is a much bigger, much more influential character in the game, and at the Reds, than van der Pol. Maybe that’s his problem.
It’s hard not to be concerned about the direction of Adelaide United after this season. When Kurz was flicked, the coach made a worrying statement.
“During my meeting with Piet I realised quickly that we do not have a common vision for the future of Adelaide United. Our goals are very different.”
Given Kurz’s goals appear to be winning games and improving players, you wonder what van der Pol’s are. Presumably he has some but, 14 months after taking over the club, it’s not obvious what they are.
He has made some generic comments about “development’’, links to China through the Qingdao Red Lions and Adelaide being a “top three’’ A-League club. But there’s been little explanation beyond that.
Which brings us back to the vexed question of who owns Adelaide United.
It’s not a peripheral question. It goes to the heart of the credibility of the management and ownership of the club.
Van der Pol styles himself as the frontman of the group. He has also said he is a shareholder of Adelaide United. Whether he owns 1 per cent or 51 per cent is a mystery.
Van der Pol has been pressed repeatedly on this issue. Detailed questions were sent to him last November and they have never been answered. We know Adelaide United is owned by a company called Australian Football Opportunities, which in turn is owned by the Hong Kong-based Global Football Opportunities. GFO was formed in October 2017 with China-based Dutch businessmen Rob van Eck as director and sole shareholder. But he resigned as director in February 2018.
AFO was registered with ASIC in February 2018, just before the group bought Adelaide United for about $12 million. It is believed the investors are from the Netherlands and China.
When he announced himself as one of the new owners, van der Pol described it as “an investor group that will be coming here perhaps twice a year, they’ll be going to the Barossa and they won’t be shouting at the coach who to put on the bench, for example.’’
Strangely enough, that’s more or less what they did when, after repeated requests from Kurz for a new striker, van der Pol recommended Dutchman Jordy Thomassen for the role. Nine games and no goals later, Thomassen has disappeared.
It’s that kind of decision-making that undermines confidence. The identity of the owners is relevant because it’s important to understand how capable these people are, how experienced, how much money they have to invest.
That the club is not just a bizarre get-rich-quick scheme put together by people who don’t hold its best interests at heart.
And when they make a boneheaded decision to ditch a successful coach the doubts about those in charge are only magnified.
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