‘A poisoned chalice’: The brutal cost of Clive Palmer’s Southport Tigers spending spree
Clive Palmer’s billions brought glory to a Gold Coast footy club but at what cost? Now, with his money gone, Southport faces a difficult rebuild. Inside the fallout, the broken promises, and a local club’s fight to repair a broken culture.
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At the start, it was every local footy club’s dream – a billionaire fairy godmother to solve every financial worry with a flick of a magic wand, or at least a credit card, with premierships there for the taking.
But for Southport Tigers, their Clive Palmer fairytale has ended in heartbreak with the club rebuilding its reputation and two proud Rugby League Gold Coast rivals collapsed under the weight of a financial arms race.
“He was really generous with us but it was also a bit of a poisoned chalice,” incoming Tigers president Matt Williams reflected.
“The previous A-grade coach put it perfectly at a presentation night. He said, ‘we’re not a club of grassroots players. We’re a club of mercenaries’. And it was true.
“We had a gun side that won back-to-back premierships but it was all through what some might see as ‘buying’ a premiership.
“I think the intentions were good but obviously we just had a bad impact on the local comp.
“Inadvertently, we started an arms race. Other clubs folded … (and) part of the reason was they were trying to keep up with us.”
After consecutive titles powered by Palmer’s blank chequebook, the inflationary effect of competing financially with the Tigers had plunged the league into crisis.
Then, when midnight struck during the 2024 pre-season, Palmer was gone – leaving a new committee holding a glass slipper and a reputation as the villains of Gold Coast sport.
With a new A-grade season about to begin and the last of ‘Clive’s Cohort’ out of the club, Williams gave a stunning interview laying bare the ugly aftermath of the Palmer era, as he embarks on a mission to restore the club and its reputation.
A Palmer spokesman declined to comment.
THE PALMER EFFECT
It was July 10, 2021 and Southport Tigers were playing Runaway Bay in round 7 of the Gold Coast A-grade competition.
The club had won two of six games to that point, including an 88-0 defeat at Burleigh a month earlier.
But for this game, the eyes of Australia were fixed on Owen Park as high-profile recruits Israel Folau and Tony ‘T-Rex’ Williams made their debut in a Queensland third-tier competition.
The Tigers never learned what the pair was paid; their salaries were paid directly to them by the club’s major sponsor, Mineralogy.
“We were just told that these guys would be turning up to training one day and be thankful for it,” Williams recalled.
The Tigers were Palmer’s local footy club and members of the board were counted among the billionaire’s childhood friends.
Positioning himself as a political champion of the persecuted, Palmer offered Williams, Folau and his two brothers, Eni and John, career lifelines.
Folau had been sacked by Rugby Australia for violating its social-media policy over repeated homophobic comments.
Williams was another social-media pariah, sacked by his New York-based club for online posts supporting Jarryd Hayne.
Those signings opened the floodgates, Matt Williams said, as a host of former NRL players sought out their own slice of Palmer’s billions to play park football on the Gold Coast.
“We had some players that had wound down their careers a little bit and were wanting to play,” Williams said.
“They’d come to the club and ask if Clive was still around, trying the best they could to maximise their income and playing time.
“Other clubs tried to keep up with us.
“We had all these weapons in our arsenal with Izzy Folau and all those guys that we’d paid all this money for.
“Other clubs saw that and tried to find the funds to be able to keep up with Southport.
“It was like inflation.
“You introduce a character like Clive into the mix, who was very generous and giving out large sums of money, and players see that.”
Rugby League Gold Coast chairman Wayne Court said Southport created a “false economy” that ramped up financial pressure on other clubs in the region.
“The resentment (against Southport) came from them lifting the bar higher, that everyone else had to struggle to keep up,” Court said.
“Players would go to other clubs and say, ‘I can get this amount at Southport, ‘what are you going to pay’?
“So, they’d be trying to push their price up.
“The average club is relying on sponsors and gate takings to try pay for players. It made it hard because everyone was, all of a sudden, wanting to be paid a hell of a lot more.
“The biggest problem we had was we’ve seen a couple of clubs over the last couple of years, Ormeau and Mudgeeraba, drop out of A-grade due to the financial pressure.
“That has caused us to go to six teams. We really want to look to the future to grow that again.”
THE MUSIC STOPS
Southport’s access to Palmer was cut suddenly after the 2023 grand final.
President Tim Mahoney was suspended by Queensland Rugby League for contrary conduct in the weeks following the club’s second consecutive premiership.
It is understood that a faction within the Tigers club tried unsuccessfully to award Mahoney life membership during the term of his suspension.
When that proposal was rejected, Mahoney’s supporters walked away from the club in protest – severing Southport’s connection to Palmer.
“Our previous president had been given a pretty heavy suspension, I think through 2029, and he and a couple of other guys had a really close relationship with Clive,” Williams said.
“When he left, a lot of the club’s ability to contact Clive went with him.
“There was a bit of a rough patch after that. We had a lot of players with Clive and he was a pretty generous guy. We definitely have no ill will towards Clive. I’ve really got nothing but good things to say about the man.
“He came to a home game once and before I could say anything, like ‘you’ve already paid enough’, Clive had pulled out his wallet and paid the $7 entry fee. He’s a life member at our club and he is always welcome back … but last year was the first we didn’t have Clive and we limped our way through that.”
Without Palmer’s chequebook at its disposal, promises made to players signed during the Palmer era regarding payment were broken.
Rumours spread like wildfire, including a tip-off to a local radio station suggesting the historic club would fold out of senior competition late last season.
“At the time, there was a bit of inner turmoil in the club … a lot of that had to do with the previous board committing to paying players without having the commitment there ready to go,” Williams said.
“The club committed to paying players $65,000 for the whole season. I don’t think at the time there was a plan to make sure that was there at the end of the season.
“When the time came to pay, the club was like, ‘hang on a minute, we don’t have a lot here’.
“A lot of those A-grade players were rightly upset. They were promised they’d get paid something and then to be told that might not happen. It must have been pretty devastating for some of those guys who had poured in their blood, sweat and tears, only to have it taken away from them.
“I don’t know who submitted the rumour to the radio station but there was no truth to it.
“We always planned to play on and field an A-grade side so there was no truth to the matter.
“At the time, we certainly hadn’t considered folding in A-grade at all.”
Those rumours have persisted into the new year but Williams said the club was forging ahead.
“A lot of players have left the club which I see as an opportunity for us to build a less transactional culture,” he said.
BUILDING THE FUTURE
Southport’s reign as financial superpower of Gold Coast sport is over but there are few tears being shed at Owen Park as a more sustainable future beckons.
The primary concern for club leadership over the next 12 months is to repair its relationships with the local community and neighbouring clubs.
Winning at all costs is no longer Southport’s major objective.
“Part of the platform I ran on (for the club presidency) was to try repair the relationship with other clubs because we’re known as the mercenaries,” Williams said.
“(The perception) was almost that we cheated, without cheating. We kind of did – a local club is meant to be a local club not a Queensland Cup or NRL team where you’re flying guys in from all over the place.
“I think sometimes club leaders forget why we’re in the role. I know what we are: we’re a little community footy club and we want to be a good community member and give something for our kids to stay fit and healthy.
“I’ve said to our A-grade coach and manager that I’m not really interested in trying to win competitions. Yes that’s great and important but what I’m more concerned about is making sure that we’ve got longevity.”
Juniors, not superstars, will be the Tigers way forward as it was in the 1990s and 2000s.
Williams was the son of a Tiger and came through the junior ranks to play A-grade for the club.
He hopes to foster a new generation to follow his path and raise a community with it.
“We’re trying to build a community around the club that in previous years was a little bit lost,” he said.
“We had a really heavy focus on A-grade and trying to win premierships but my team and I are more focused on growing our junior ranks because they’re the future of our club.
“We want to get it back to the point it was in the late ’90s when it was standing room only on weekends where games were.
“I don’t know if it will ever get back to where it was but I certainly think we’re well on the way to building a place people can feel comfortable to come down, have a beer or a Coca-Cola, watch some decent footy and get to know the people around them.
“That’s the culture we’re trying to cultivate and get it back to where it used to be in the glory days.”
Former Warriors player Jason Williams has taken over from ex-Titans and NSW hardman Greg Bird and is building a squad that will rely on work ethic over imported starpower – in 2025 and beyond.
Originally published as ‘A poisoned chalice’: The brutal cost of Clive Palmer’s Southport Tigers spending spree
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