Michael McGuire: You want to know whoever owns your club is committed and has funds to ride out a rough patch
It’s a bad time for A-League owners as coronavirus hammers their wallets but it’s never been more crucial for Adelaide fans to know who actually owns their club, argues Michael McGuire.
Opinion
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This must be a terrible time to own a football club in the A-League.
COVID-19 severely disrupted the last season. The major revenue streams are drying up. No crowds and a sharp fall in TV money are serious problems, potentially fatal problems for some clubs.
Then we have players in revolt about new contracts and much they will be paid next season. One club has stood down its playing squad while contracts are argued over. Across the A-League, most players weren’t paid in full for last season.
Football in Australia has always been a precarious business. Mainly because historically it’s been run at times by people who display the business sense of Tim Marcus Clarke and the interpersonal skills of Joseph Stalin.
So, now would be a good time for football fans to have some idea about who owns their clubs. For good or ill, whether it makes logical sense or not, sport fans invest a lot of emotional energy into their teams. A result can make or break your day, week, month or season.
You want to know that whoever owns your club is committed to the long haul. That they have the funds and the backing to ride out a rough patch such as this one.
It emerged earlier this week that to add to all their other troubles at the moment, the owners of Adelaide United are being sued for $1.7 million in a dispute that goes back to when the current owners took control of the club in March 2018.
When the new owners bought the Reds it cost them around $12 million. At the time businessman Robert Gerard and lawyer Greg Griffin, who each owned 30 per cent were paid out. Dr Richard Noble received the payment for his 15 per cent.
The other 25 per cent was held by now bankrupt businessman Bruno Marveggio. For reasons that are unclear, Marveggio had a different arrangement.
The holding was held by MCBH Property Group, of which Marveggio was a director, and is still a shareholder, and it is now asking the Supreme Court for that $1.7 million.
Ever since the sale, the club’s new owners have been unwilling to divulge who actually controls Adelaide United.
The club’s chairman Piet van der Pol, who is the front man for the ownership group, has refused for a couple of years to answer straightforward questions about who owns the club beyond vague statements about Dutch and Chinese investors.
Technically, Adelaide is owned by a company called Australian Football Opportunities, which is turn is owned by a Hong Kong-based outfit called Global Football Opportunities. Shares in both GFO and AFO are “beneficially held’’ making it difficult to determine who ultimately owns what. Van der Pol identifies himself as one of the ownership group, but it is clear he is not the main man.
It seems that honour falls to a Dutch businessman called Cor Adriaanse. Cor and Jac Adriaanse run a global trading company called Edco, which according to business information company Dun & Bradstreet has revenues of $US320 million ($450m) a year.
Attempts to contact Cor Adriaanse have been unsuccessful, but the time has surely arrived for him to talk about why he has invested in Adelaide United, how he sees the way out of the current problems facing the entire league and his commitment to making sure the Reds survive.
The secrecy is puzzling. Van der Pol limits interactions with the media to a friendly few.
Adelaide went backwards last year on-field. It went from being a penalty kick away from the grand final to losing a new coach, messing up its international recruiting strategy and missing the finals.
Despite that, there are reasons for optimism. Promising young players, a new coach, a well-received new playing strip all give fans hope.
But at a time with so much uncertainty, those fans also deserve to know who is signing the cheques that keep the club alive. Because this year, those cheques are going to be bigger.
