Adelaide United chairman Piet van der Pol says Reds will survive coronavirus fallout, but wage sacrifices must be made
Piet van der Pol says Adelaide United, along with other A-League clubs, may need to “reset” as the financial strength of the competition is tested by the coronavirus crisis.
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Adelaide United chairman Piet van der Pol says the Reds will survive beyond the coronavirus pandemic which finally crippled the A-League, predicting the crisis could crush the Reds financially if they’re not prudent.
He also revealed an unnamed Reds import had asked if he could go home immediately after Football Federation Australia chief executive James Johnson on Tuesday confirmed the A-League would be postponed until at least April 22.
“Yes, (Adelaide United will survive) everyone has to survive and every pub that has closed down will be open at some point,’’ van der Pol said.
“This is perhaps a possibility to reset many things in life.
“Whether it’s nature in Venice or whether it’s professional football in Australia, it gives an opportunity to take a blank piece of paper and say ‘we want to start a football club today, what would it look like, and what do we need’.
“And for me, we need a ball and surface and everything else is optional, where we think we can start.
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“So, I have run football clubs between $2.5 million and $20 million per year budgets and with a $2.5 million budget we were playing with a first team, a second team and four youth teams, and so everything is possible.
“We have to work with what we can do, fortunately our local Adelaide United partners, we’re in close contact with them, the companies that support us, for instance Flinders University can do a lot of online teaching now.
“McDonald’s (fast food) is in a better situation than most restaurants, but we all have to help each other and everyone has to realise that things are not going to be the same for next couple of weeks, months, whatever, but we’ll get back to normal and we will adjust.
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“I always think when there is a crisis the economy shrinks one or two per cent and if this happens for two years we’re back at the level of 2013.
“Were we suffering so much in 2013?
“No, but maybe we cannot buy a new car and the car manufacturer may be suffering, but that’s reality.
“I don’t think it’s different for a football club or any other business at the moment, nobody knows what’s going to happen.”
However, van der Pol couldn’t guarantee paying players their full wages during the postponement after all players and coaching staff were addressed by chief executive Nathan Kosmina, along with football director Bruce Djite and head of marketing and communications Marius Zanin on Tuesday.
FFA will reconvene on April 22 to decide whether the competition can end its season.
“I have no idea, (if players can get paid),’’ van der Pol said.
“Nobody can say now, we’re talking about this with the (other) clubs.
“It makes sense to have discussions with all the clubs because everyone is in the same situation, the reality is only the richest clubs in the world can survive something like this.
“And 99.9 per cent of all football clubs will be struggling dramatically and the A-League doesn’t have clubs at that level.
“The A-League salary cap went from $1.5 million to $3.2 million in a couple of years, it’s not unthinkable that it has to go back a bit and that was football when we had $1.5 million in the cap.”
Scotland’s Heart of Midlothian have asked all players and staff including ex-Adelaide defender Ben Garuccio to take a 50 per cent wage cut from April 1.
Reds midfielder Stefan Mauk told The Advertiser he would consider taking a pay cut.
AFL players have pledged an immediate 50 per cent pay cut for at least the next two months.