Michael McGuire: What’s Adelaide United hiding? Hopefully nothing, but it is all still very odd

It seems illogical, not to mention unfair for the fans of the club, that the Reds’s ownership structure is shrouded in such secrecy, writes Michael McGuire.

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It’s almost a year since Adelaide United was sold to … well, somebody.

And the longer this vacuum of knowledge exists, the more curious the whole affair becomes. It seems illogical, not to mention unfair for the fans of the club, that the ownership structure is shrouded in such secrecy.

Transparency has long been a problem in football all over the world, but the owners of the other nine A-League clubs are known. It’s easy enough to find out who owns clubs such as Manchester United or Liverpool. We know Melbourne City and Manchester City are ultimately mostly owned by Sheik Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan of the Abu Dhabi royal family.

Adelaide United chairman Piet van der Pol. Picture: AAP Image/David Mariuz

All of which prompts a very obvious question: What is Adelaide United hiding?

Possibly nothing. Hopefully nothing, but it’s all still very odd.

United was sold by previous owners Rob Gerard, Greg Griffin, Bruno Marveggio and Richard Noble in March last year. The sale price was rumoured to be around $12 million.

The frontman for the new owners was Piet van Der Pol, who is now chairman of the club. Van Der Pol is one owner, but he said there was another three involved in the consortium. One was said to be one of the wealthiest men in Holland, while there was also a Chinese investor involved as well.

At the time Van Der Pol said the names of the other owners would not be made public for reasons of privacy.

A trawl through publicly available documents, both in Australia and China, don’t shed a great deal of light either.

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 Dutch, China-based businessmen Rob van Eck as director and sole shareholder. Van Eck resigned as director in February 2018. AFO was registered with ASIC in February 2018.

Shares in both GFO and AFO are “beneficially held’’ making it difficult to determine who ultimately owns what.

Van Eck, though, is probably the key. He is managing director of Smart Brands, a retail supply company that has both Chinese and Dutch shareholders.

Queries to Van Eck, Van Der Pol, Adelaide United and FFA to try to clarify the ownership questions have been unanswered.

But it’s important. Fans need to know the names and capabilities of the people running their club. A-League clubs generally lose money. Is the reason Adelaide hasn’t managed to sign a striker, despite pleas from coach Marco Kurz, related to the financial backing of the club?

Until some light is shed on the subject, the question remains — who really owns Adelaide United?