Glenelg greats launch debt demolition campaign to stop ailing football club from folding

GLENELG Football Club is calling on its former greats to rally behind the financially-stricken football club as it launches its “Save The Tigers” debt demolition campaign.

Glenelg Football Club legend Peter Carey, fans Joe Chigwidden (11) and Summer Ryan (12), with club president Nick Chigwidden at the launch of the club's 'Save the Tigers' fund. Picture: Bianca De Marchi

GLENELG Football Club is calling on its former greats to rally behind the financially-stricken football club as it launched its “Save The Tigers” debt demolition campaign on Monday night.

The club has a $3.4 million debt and Tigers president Nick Chigwidden says if it can’t quickly wipe off $1 million from its bottom line it is no certainty to survive beyond this year.

The Tigers owe the Holdfast Bay Council $2.2 million and ANZ Bank $1.2 million.

The club borrowed the money from the council to build its function centre and the bank loan was used to construct the club’s bistro.

Glenelg and the council have been in discussions for three months to waive some or all of the debt and last week Holdfast Bay Mayor Stephen Patterson said while nothing had been decided, the council was not considering helping the Tigers retire its debt.

Chigwidden said he expected to meet with the council on June 28 to thrash out financial strategies on the repayment of the loan.

Club legends Peter Carey and Graham Cornes are among a host of former players to make impassioned public pleas for supporters and businesses to help save the 96-year-old club from extinction

“This is arguably our greatest challenge as a football club,’’ Chigwidden, a former captain and four-times Tigers best and fairest winner, said.

“We are a proud club which has never gone to its community for assistance outside marketing for membership and sponsorship but right now we have to.

“We’re in a very tight position and while we’re working through it we’ve just got to clear some of our debt soon.’’

The Tigers financial woes are due to the high annual interest payments on the loans to fund their function centre, which was commissioned in 2002, and bistro development.

The club’s annual interest payment is $224,000.

In the past five years Glenelg, which suffered a $208,850 loss last financial year, has paid about $1.2 million in “dead money’’ without denting the princple.

Glenelg will invest the $2 million it will receive from the proceeds of the AAMI Stadium sale over the next seven years — the funds are heavily back-ended and will start at just $125,000 this year — to help wipe off its debt but is desperate to quickly address the remaining $1 million to secure its future.

The Tigers, who last night announced a two-year contract extension for coach Matthew Lokan, have asked for more support from the council, which is understood to have pledged $350,000 to upgrade its changerooms.

The SANFL is supporting Glenelg’s debt demolition campaign.

Former star ruckman and triple premiership player Carey — the Tigers’ games record-holder with 448 from 1971-88 — said the football club is too great an institution to let die.

“This club means the absolute world to me and the local community,’’ he said.

“I’ve spent most off my life here and I just know how big a role it has played — and continues to play — in the lives of so many people and in SA football.

“I cannot think of a world without the Glenelg Football Club so we’ve just got to do everything we possibly can to guarantee its future.’’

Carey and Cornes play leading roles in an emotional Save The Tigers video presentation Glenelg has produced to raise urgent funds.

The call to arms video can be viewed on the Glenelg and Australian Sports Foundation websites and all donations will go directly to reducing the debt.

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WE’RE FROM TIGERLAND

Glenelg Football Club

Established: 1920.

First league season: 1921.

Premierships: 4 - 1934, 1973, 1985, 1986.

Grand Finals: 17 - 1934, 1950, 1969, 1970, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1977, 1981, 1982, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1990, 1992, 2008.

Magarey Medallists: 8 - Jim Handby (1928), George Johnston (1934), Mel Brock (1940), Allan Crabb (1949), Fred Phillis (1969), Kym Hodgeman (1978), Tony McGuinness (1982), Brett Backwell (2006).

OTHER SANFL CLUBS

WEST ADELAIDE: $280,000 loss in 2015 after $214,000 loss in 2014. Last year the Bloods cleared $2 million debt by selling its Richmond Oval assets to a group of investors.

SOUTH ADELAIDE: $111,287 loss for 2015, compared with a $443,892 loss in 2014.

CENTRAL DISTRICT: $109,408 loss in 2015 after a $160,000 loss in 2014

NORWOOD: $224,459 loss in 2015 after $170,000 profit in 2014

WOODVILLE-WEST TORRENS: $332,000 loss in 2015 which followed a $700,000 loss in 2014, after the sale of Port Road clubrooms.

STURT: $191,000 operating profit for 2015. The result followed a $319,000 profit 12 months earlier.

NORTH: $322,547 profit in 2015 after $312,000 profit in 2014.