Phoenix Ownership - Rob says FTFFA (Part 2)

This kind of pressure may well result in Welnix finding a way and establishing a template for others to follow.

I think it will only be a matter of time before owning an A League club will be a money maker and I think Welnix are eating crow [so to speak] in the hope that day comes soon. 

I think the likelihood of this happening is somewhere between slim and none outside of the two big clubs in the league.  It's not exactly as if the world is awash with football clubs that consistently turn a profit.

So basically FFA are up to their old tricks of trying to negotiate via their media cronies again. *sigh*

It's all bullshark.

If we agree to this 4+3+3 thing (which is what the FFA media are driving) then it's all a bit pointless really and I hope Welnix don't agree and leave them with a nine team league. Stuff the FFA, they're a joke - if it's not one thing it's another.

I'll be gutted to lose my club but sometimes the bullshark isn't worth it. This may be one of those times.

"games against Wellington Phoenix often draw the lowest home crowds for Australian teams"... Well let's fact check this out.

Jets – 2nd lowest

CCM – 3rd and 6th lowest

Victory – 6th lowest

Ade – 7th lowest

Syd– 2nd lowest

Glory – 7th lowest

WSW – 5th lowest

So our two worst crowds in Aus have been a Thursday night game and against a team that hadn't won in the previous 10 games.

I think it is way too early to speculate and to spew angst. I usually wait with angst till the Phoenix game day.

For all you know (speculation alert) the marquee requirement might be a compulsory Australian marquee player in the Nix, to aid the development of Australian football. And they would be right to require something like that - it is not a "Trans-tasman league", it is an Australian league that we play in. But that is just my speculation.

It's been over a year since the "extension" was first mentioned by the club/FFA, and well after numerous indications it would be sorted by the end of the (last) season, then end of the (last) year, then... It's not early at all, it's well overdue.

Where was the original quote from, the FFA puff piece or the stuff Copy and Paste?

Honestly it's the open contempt for us from the FFA that is p*ssing me off the most at the moment. They don't want us, but can't get enough Aussie teams up and running so need to keep us. And they're not even trying to hide it.

so much incorrect or misleading information in that article. Also citing the Warriors as an example of why we should take more home games around the country? They do that less than we do!

This has me feeling uneasy about the licence situation. And pissed off. 

Okay, I may make myself unpopular here, but here goes...

I was actually in town this weekend, and I was shocked to look at the economic decline of the CBD. There are people panhandling on Courtenay Place now, for heaven's sake. John Key might have been wrong when he said Welly was dying, but it ain't half sick, mate. Apart from the big three employers (public service, tertiary education, Peter Jackson) the main industry left seems to be "hipsters selling each other coffee and vegan snacks".

Welnix clearly have an interest in providing something to prevent everyone worthwhile just giving up and adding to the Auckland housing bubble. And given Justin Lester's recent comments, the Council are right behind them. But yesterday I felt the clear whiff of a city desperation. I'm sure Gallop can smell it all the way from Newcastle.

We had Peter Jackson twisting the arm of the Government to smash the Actors' Union with the threat of taking movies elsewhere (and of course they've gone elsewhere anyway, Northern Ireland in particular). We had that shyster "Mystery" Morrison bringing in a call centre which just went up in smoke. This is what happens when local business/government are desperate to "attract investment" - they get shafted, and then the investment just goes away in a couple of years when they find someone more desperate to exploit. Bottom line for me? FFA know we're desperate and the question is not whether Welnix will bend over, it's how far they'll bend over; when they bend, do they spread; and who's got the Vaseline.

Tl:dr; I am predicting a renewal with absolutely sharkhouse conditions, which Welnix will grit their teeth and suck up.

That article is such a piece of sh*t. 

Stats don't back you up Dolorous. Unemployment is around 6% in Wellington compared to 7% in Auckland, wages are the highest in the country and the economy is growing. There are homeless people but they are rare enough that they are minor celebrities.

Things might not be great but they aren't great anywhere in NZ.

Also it is the biggest employer in Wellington but was left off or list. Accounting software xero  alone employs hundreds of people.

Tldr: I walked through courtenay place, saw coffee shops and a few people asking for money and concluded that Wellington is dying as a city. 

And my friends who still live here say "this place is becoming a ghost town, I'm getting out to Auckland or Melbourne or somewhere as soon as I have the money saved". Prickly defensiveness at the suggestion that there is anything wrong with Welly - that it reached perfection in 2005 and nothing has needed to change since then - is of course a local tradition.

But seriously, if Wellington's economy is buoyant and nothing to worry about, surely Welnix will get a good deal and we'll all be happy. Right?

I fail to see what the Wellington economy has to do with the Phoenix licence extension. 

There was an article recently that said that homeless people were shifting to Wellington because they got more money panhandling here than they did in other centres, so that could actually be an indicator of relative prosperity here rather than the opposite.

As for that article and anything it says, I think Fairfax have established that they are incapable of even basic fact-checking (the attendance stat for example) or of showing a balanced analysis of the issues. They are blatantly regurgitating FFA propaganda either for the clicks or because someone there is feeding it to them to undermine the club, or a combination of those factors, or for some other reason entirely. Regardless, their reporting is a joke and soon they'll be like the boy who cried wolf on this issue. Show me a fudgeing press conference with Gallop and Morrison or STFU

Not a prickly response here, but Wgtn housing market is actually heating up while Akl is slowing down.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/home-property/75...

https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/7586324...

Courtenay Place is the entertainment strip of Wellington. Pub Quotes: "It's cheaper to fly to Wgtn to have my stag do than the taxi fares between pubs of Christchurch" Cheaper to fly to Wgtn for a great Hen;s night than doing it in Auckland"  Walk the strip after 11 pm to see the crowds, Friday and Saturday night pay for the week. Weekdays 12-- till 2 on Lampton Quay $1000 a square metre for rents big shops would move out if no life.  (needs traffic wardens for the footpaths) - We drive on the left but walk where we want (stupid) causing KAOS

What makes me FURIOUS is that Roly should be that Marquee...He's an exciting player, in his prime from a very good background who is getting kicked out of every game. 

Instead of supporting this quality of player the FFA have screwed over an important season in his development with this BULLSHIT and their refs allow players to kick him with impunity and then give him half-baked yellows. 

This is the quality of player who will build a club: Smeltz, Ifill, Bonevacia

FFA? nah, FFS :-(

Is there anyway to sue the FFA or the papers for putting incorrect information out into the media?

I'm sure nobody has said this before but... FUCK THE FFA!

I am specifically addressing today's half-baked guesses on what the actual conditions of the license extension are.

The actual extension deal is long overdue, and was handled atrociously by FFA, no argument here.

I hate football! :-(

https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/73736709/beggars-c...

Fairfax are repeating, not reporting.

Also Doloras "hipsters selling each other coffee and vegan snacks" is actually a sign of a prosperous city, hand crafted and artisan products are not cheap. In Wellington we have literally dozens of hand made and craft food and beverage providers, all of these are high priced luxury items that are the first to fail in a downturn. These are also the sorts of industries that intelligent cities should love and encourage, because they keep a CBD vibrant, add to the culture, are almost immune to being killed by online ordering or a new mall, and are loved by tourists and guests.

The whole "hipsters selling each other coffee and vegan snacks" thing is why one of the ways they decided to get punters into the stadium was to introduce craft beers and better food, because that's what Wellingtonians like, and you can only like that sort of stuff when you can afford to like it, when you have disposable income - and that comes from having the highest wages in the country but actually (almost) affordable housing. Imagine that.

What you saw, you looked down on because it was strange to you - it wasn't harassed looking people, eating Mcdonalds under neon lights in the many kilometres of anonymous chain stores in some monstrous slab of concrete outside of a dying CBD. What you saw and dismissed as being so foreign was people enjoying themselves and more importantly enjoying life. What you saw was, in actual fact, prosperity.

Ryan, the population of the Auckland CBD has gone from 25,000 to 40,000 in 5 years. Same size as Upper Hutt now. Dying? Promote Wellington's economy as buoyant all you want, that's an argument that can be had, but don't just tell fudgin' lies about Auckland. Things have changed since 1995 when your nonsense might have had a grain of truth.

Seriously, back on topic: the question of the health of Wellington's economic is the question of (a) how much Welnix and the Council are prepared to bend over to FFA demands to keep the Nix; (b) how much disposable income there might be to spend on tickets/merchandise in future.

I was actually thinking of cities like Hamilton and Lower Hutt when I was talking about dying CBD's. Auckland is fortunate to have tourism and business to sustain its main CBD, but some of the other CBD's like Manukau are definitely struggling. And also almost any city in the US including LA and San Fran, and especially including the rust belt. Urban Decay is a very real thing in western societies, the internet and huge shopping complexes are killing our centres. Wellington city appears to be handling this very well. 

True, Manukau City was a soulless monstrosity from birth, dunno about LHutt or the Tron. Of course Manukau City now has its own train station and tertiary campus, so things may improve soon.

So, BACK ON TOPIC! :D

The complaining about Wellington's CBD is hilarious. I've been to Welly a couple of times and it is pretty vibrant. Walk around Hamilton's CBD on a saturday, the only people left are beggars. Everybody shops at the large shopping centres on the cities outskirts. Given the sprawling nature of our CBD you could probably film an apocolypse movie here most days of the week. 

So far off topic it's causing my brain to hurt.

Start a new thread in off topic for this pissing competition.  

This thread is for pointing out how the FFA are the least professional bunch of incompetent fudgetards this side of Jack Warner, who conveniently they have also paid off.

Thank you. Thank you, so much.

Need some news first.

Doloras = the new Midfielder

What a relief - I thought I was the new whoooooooooo.

This thread needs more Pundemonium

Do you have a prize to give out???