Struggling Gold Coast Suns send seven staff on European junket
SEVEN staff from footy’s $200m disaster club Gold Coast Suns are living it up on a two-week club-funded European junket, amid visiting elite sporting clubs.
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SEVEN staff from footy’s $200m disaster club, Gold Coast Suns, are living it up on a two-week club-funded European junket.
The tour is designed to provide an insight into the workings of elite sporting teams, Gold Coast say, with visits to soccer clubs Arsenal and Southampton as well as London rugby union side Saracens.
But Facebook and Instagram posts by Suns tour party members detail a whirlwind of major sporting events, social activities and sightseeing.
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In one Instagram post, the general manager of people and organisation development Megan Green boasts: “Sooo much fun with my UK family. Chinatown, lobster, wine on the Thames, London Bridge and Tower and Buckingham Palace.”
Posts capture Green posing outside the iconic Covent Garden Market and in front of a royal guard.
Gold Coast football operations and compliance manager Scott Pyle has posted images and video from the Saracens’ European Rugby Champions Cup win over French side Lyon last Saturday evening (London time).
One friend commented: “Good to see you lads doing it hard over there.”
On Monday night, the crew enjoyed Arsenal’s 3-1 victory over Leicester City at the Emirates Stadium.
“Thanks to Judith at Covermore for hosting us. Amazing night,’’ Pyle boasts on Facebook.
And on Wednesday night, Pyle was almost 350km north, watching from the famous Kop stand as Liverpool demolished Red Star Belgrade 4-0 in the Europeans Champions League.
“Anfield amazing,” Pyle says.
Responding to Pyle’s social media updates, a friend jokes: “Hope it’s not all party time over there, you know you have a job to do.”
Gold Coast picked up the tab for premium economy seats for the party’s flights and a house in central London, south of Hyde Park.
The group consists of senior coach Stuart Dew, football boss Jon Haines, deputy media manager Thomas Beverley, fitness boss Alex Rigby, assistant coach Ashley Prescott, Green and Pyle.
The tour also takes in visits to the operations of England Rugby and UK Sailing.
Haines will make a side-trip to meet with a soccer club in Denmark.
It is common for senior AFL coaches and football department bosses to make global club visits, but a party of seven, including back office staff, is considered unusual.
A Suns spokesman yesterday said: “The opportunity to meet with various sporting organisations in the UK was budgeted for and is in line with the our business strategy.
“The trip provided an opportunity for our people to visit and experience best practice in various elite sporting environments. As a club we have a heavy focus on culture, leadership and development and are fully aware we have room to improve in these key areas.
“Our people on the study tour all play critical roles within the business and we look forward to them bringing back their learnings for the cub to benefit from. Outside of the scheduled visits staff have been encouraged to make use of their downtime.”
The embattled Suns have been plagued by a series of player walkouts and off-field scandals.
Co-captains Tom Lynch and Steven May quit the club in this month’s trade period and free agency period, with Suns figures declaring it was starting all over.
Emergency draft concessions were also awarded to the failing expansion club by the AFL commission last month.
Launched in 2011 under the guidance of a first-time coach Guy McKenna, rookie captain Gary Ablett, untried football boss Marcus Ashcroft and novice chief executive Travis Auld, the badly under-resourced Suns were forced to operate out of portable tin sheds for the first seven years.
Disgraced fitness boss Dean “The Weapon” Robinson and sports scientist Stephen Dank worked at the club before moving to Essendon, where they were key figures in the ill-fated supplements regime.
At the Suns, Robinson and Dank supplied star player Nathan Bock with the banned peptide CJC-1295.
The AFL-brokered deal to bring NRL code-hopper Karmichael Hunt to the club also spectacularly backfired after he was caught out in a Queensland Crime and Corruption Commission drugs investigation.
Hunt told police that seven Suns players used significant quantities of cocaine in August 2014.
The AFL poured more than $24m into the Suns this year alone, more than any other, but their membership is just 12,108.
Originally published as Struggling Gold Coast Suns send seven staff on European junket