Football shock: Gold Coast gets NPL supersized

This week’s Blast From The Past looks back at August 4, 2017 and a contentious time in Gold Coast football.

This week’s Blast From The Past looks back at August 4, 2017 and a contentious time in Gold Coast football.

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GOLD Coast City officials are asking Football Queensland for a “please explain” over the decision to put a second Coast club in the NPL Queensland competition.

Only a month ago FQ released details of a restructuring of state football that featured a 14-team NPLQ competition underpinned by a second-tier Queensland Premier League.

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The restructure included Gold Coast City (with Palm Beach Soccer Club as the owners) in NPLQ and two new clubs, Gold Coast Athletic and Gold Coast Galaxy being placed in the QPL.

However, after what one soccer insider described as “Secret Squirrel stuff”, it was discovered that a merger between Galaxy and Athletic, under the name of Gold Coast United FC, had taken place.

Matt Schmidt from Gold Coast City NPL

No one at Palm Beach nor Football Gold Coast knew of the United decision until details were released at a media conference. What has not sat well with certain people is the use by United people of Coast club logos on a promotional shirt.

Palm Beach responded with an official comment that read: “Gold Coast City is disappointed to see further applications are being considered and accepted after the submission deadline closed.

“The motivations and reasonings for these decisions are unclear and Gold Coast City believes it is entitled to seek clarification in this respect.

“Gold Coast United has claimed that all community clubs on the Gold Coast will be voting members of their new entity.It has been either stated or strongly implied that this will include Palm Beach Soccer Club, the whole owners of Gold Coast City’s NPL licence.

Gold Coast City coach Grae Piddick with players Sam Smith, Jarrod Kyle and Ethan Grimley. Picture Glenn Hampson

“Any such voting arrangement presents a clear conflict of interest for Palm Beach and Gold Coast City.

“As such, Gold Coast City seek to emphatically state that Palm Beach was not consulted, did not seek and does not want any part of this new entity.”

FQ chief executive Geoff Foster said a board meeting decided to admit United into the NPLQ with backing of Sports Gold Coast.

Foster said the final composition of the two state competitions will not be known until later this month. And he said it is likely to have 15 NPLQ clubs, presuming that all applicants take up the offer of a licence.

“We’ve always had the right to make changes,” he said of the unexpected merger.

Asked if the release of the United deal could have been handled better, Foster said: “I don’t think so. Maybe I could have had a conversation with Andrew Purnell-Webb (Palm Beach president), anyway ….”