Keith Thomas says Port Adelaide is in a ‘life threatening situation’ but it won’t go under
Port Adelaide chief executive Keith Thomas admits the club is in a life-threatening situation, but reassures the club will not go under.
Port Adelaide
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Port Adelaide chief executive Keith Thomas says the club is in for “a pretty significant fight’’ but insists it will survive the coronavirus pandemic.
Describing the decision last week to stand down 80 per cent of club staff to get through the global health crisis as the toughest of his life, a resolute Thomas said the Power – under threat of folding in the early 2010s – would re-emerge as a powerful AFL club.
And he expressed confidence that a 17-round season would still be played this year.
“The club will survive, we won’t let it go under,’’ he said.
“It’s in a life-threatening situation but it will not go under.’’
Port – like its AFL rivals – will lose millions of dollars as the game comes to a grinding halt because of COVID-19.
Matches have stopped after one round until May 31 and the delay could be longer as Australia battles the virus.
“It’s been a very tough week for our club and for the entire community,’’ Thomas said, adding “at AFL level we’re really committed to playing the season out, even if that takes us into December’’.
“We’re in a similar position to everyone else where we feel as if we’re preparing for a pretty significant fight.’’
Thomas said that financially Port – in its 150th year and easy round one winners against Gold Coast – was in much better shape now than it was when he took over in 2011 when it needed a “rebuild’’ and “wasn’t in good shape’’.
“The reality in this situation now is that the club is in good shape and it will be there at the end of this,’’ he said.
But Thomas said drastic measures had to be taken during the week, with massive staff cuts – eight administrative employees were let go and 50 staff stood down but the football department was temporarily spared of any redundancies – to survive the loss of incoming revenue from no games.
He described telling loyal staff members and friends that they were being stood down as the toughest moment of his life.
“This week we went from the spreadsheet to the human side of it where we were in the position of having to let people know that we were standing them down for the next two to three months to try to put us in a position where we could ride through this,’’ Thomas told ABC Grandstand.
“In our situation every revenue line is severely diminished or has disappeared, so there’s no money coming in, therefore you have to pull all costs out of the business just to keep it afloat.
“Unfortunately that means people. We’ll do that for the next two or three months and then reassess where we’re at.
“It’s been a difficult week and one where it all became very real because you are sitting in front of friends and really talented people and you’re talking about their families and how they are going to find a way through it.
“I guess the language that we were using was we have to tough this out. Yes, we’re going to dip into our savings, yes, we’re going to dip into our superannuation, some of us are going to lose our jobs, we may have to pack boxes, get temporary work, whatever we have to do we have to do.
“At the end of it we’re going to come out and the club will be in good shape.
“What we have to do as individuals is to find the most effective way to stay healthy and get through.
“As a club, my job with the executive team is to help those people do that. It won’t be easy, we haven’t got the sort of resources we would love to have to be able to get everyone through unscathed, that’s not going to be possible.
“But we’re going to do the best we can, show a bit of resilience and we’ll come out really quickly and really strongly. But the conversations this week, you could see it really hitting home.’’
Thomas said one of the most difficult parts of the predicament AFL clubs found themselves in was “the lack of certainty’’ over when the season will resume.
“I think that’s what’s causing the most anxiety, the lack of certainty,’’ he said.
“But the AFL is really committed to playing the season out and I think that’s really important because it helps me with the discussion I’m having with my team about staying focused, getting into the mindset of getting over this hump because at the end of it we’ve got a season to play out, which enables us to keep our purpose.’’