From everyone's favorite billionaire

Billionaire Gold Coast United backer Clive Palmer will decide on whether to continue funding the supporter-starved club based on a response to structural changes recommended to the A-League.

Palmer, who has already pumped over $7 million on his struggling outfit, has detailed a list of changes he wants to see implemented by Football Federation Australia (FFA), including increased funding to the clubs and an independent commission to run the A-League.

Palmer and his fellow protagonists - Perth Glory�s Tony Sage, Melbourne Victory�s Geoff Lord and Sydney FC proxy boss Scott Barlow - have joined forces to lobby for reform and will press their claims at a meeting between the owners and FFA top brass Frank Lowy, Ben Buckley and Lyall Gorman in Sydney on March 7.

Condemning FFA�s current A-League business model as fatally flawed, iron ore king Palmer made his position clear when he told The World Game: �I don't want to cease backing the club because there are futures and livelihoods at stake but we all have to make sure we have a sustainable model to make the A-League viable.

�Nobody knows what the structure at the top will be like next year, so it�s hard for any club or individual to make commitment beyond this season. We need to make sure that the A-League as an entity has a future.�

Palmer believes he has some of the answers to salvaging a competition suffering a sixth season slump with crowds melting away and the Newcastle Jets - United�s opponents on Wednesday night at Skilled Park - praying that FFA rescues it from the edge of a financial abyss.

The Palmer plan includes the setting up of an independent commission to run the game, TV telecasts being shown on delay in host jurisdictions, FFA spending all sponsorship dollars generated by the A-League exclusively on the competition and match takings from home and away fixtures being shared equally between clubs.

�We need an independent body with full authority over the A-league and we need it very soon,� he said.

�That was what the Crawford Report (back in 2003) recommended within five years but it hasn�t happened because certain individuals are more interested in power than the greater good of the game.

�Fox Sports should also only show on delay games in host cities. Showing them live does nothing to attract people to the stadiums when you can watch it at home far more easily.

�Fox Sports should also cover the club�s salary caps by way of compensation for having the rights and all sponsors dollars that flow into the A-League should go to the clubs.

�Home teams with larger populations are at an advantage when it comes to gate takings over a team like Gold Coast. The money from the home and away games should be pooled together and split 50-50.

�We also need clubs to be able to eventually develop their own grounds. As things stand, clubs can only get money from local sponsors and home crowds. But with so many inequitable deals with stadiums, how can most clubs support their $5 million budgets.�

Palmer also claimed that while fellow billionaire and FFA chairman Frank Lowy had rescued the game from oblivion, his vision on the way forward may have become blurred with the clubs losing a total of $25 million last season alone.

�Frank Lowy rescued Australian soccer but we have to move on from that,� he added. �Frank�s model is about having a viable Australian national team before you have a national competition whereas my model is other way round. We differ in our views on that.

�I would like to see the Socceroos coached by an Australian rather than a foreigner on millions of dollars and to plough the money you save into developing local coaches.�

Despite ambivalence towards United by a disengaged Gold Coast public, Palmer insists that despite his multiple business interests his commitment to the club has not wavered.

�There�s not a week goes by that I don�t spend three hours on the phone talking to our coach Miron Bleiberg and making suggestions and kicking around ideas.

�I�ve been in business for years and never made a loss on anything until I got into this. I want the club to be self-sufficient. What happens if I die? We don�t want it to simply survive because of me.

�That�s why we looked at the crowd cap. We make more money at our youth league games at Southport Tigers than we do at an A-league game. And that can�t be right.�

On the shaky future of the Jets, he said: �It�s inevitable that clubs will disappear because the formula that currently exists won�t allow any club to cover its costs under any circumstances or any assumption.�

And on United�s crowds, which hit a new low with just 2,037 for the weekend match with the Mariners and fears of that figure dipping even lower against the Jets, he said: �There�s been a lot of unfair talk about our crowds. But up to this point we�ve averaged about 5000 and that�s two per cent of the local population whereas some of the clubs in the big cities have averaged only half a per cent of their local populations.�

http://theworldgame.sbs.com.au/news/1023861/Palmer-demands-A-League-reform