It is understood FFA made its feelings known regarding Phoenix when it got together with the owners of the 10 A-League clubs during an at times fiery meeting in Sydney on Thursday.
In an indication of the importance of the meeting, FFA chairman Frank Lowy made one of his rare appearances as the two parties went through a raft of issues and procedural matters.
It has also emerged that Canberra is now a strong frontrunner to have a team in the A-League when the competition is expanded, most likely to 12 teams by 2017.
Clubs from Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Canberra and North Queensland are believed to be jockeying for a spot in the A-League as the head body looks to expand the competition beyond 10 teams and put itself in a position to negotiate an even bigger TV rights deal. The current broadcast rights are worth $160 million and expire at the end of the 2016-17 season. If Phoenix does not have their licence renewed, then FFA will have to find three new clubs if they want to go to a 12-team format.
Canberra made a good case for inclusion during the Asian Cup in January, when they hosted five games for a total attendance aggregate of 54,682 at an average of almost 11,000 a match — figures that caught the eye of the head body.
Phoenix have been under intense scrutiny for at least 18 months and FFA have made it known they are unhappy with what the Wellington-based club have brought to the competition in terms of dollars, TV ratings and croud figures.
It is believed that FFA has given Phoenix as much as $15m through a share of the broadcast rights and travel subsidies but, in return, Phoenix have brought very little back to the table.
Another article from Gatt. It's a bit sad when journalists don't realise they are being played.
No truth to this at all.
This is a little bit frightening but then again where is the real information in that article?
The croud figures comment is clearly a pisstake when you compare our croud trends with the rest of the league, especially if you look at the other teams with lower population catchment areas like ours. The tv ratings argument has been shown to be a joke as well. Yes we might not rate as high as they would want but remove us from the league and they remove the NZ market altogether. Dollars? I mean seriously WTF. What dollars are the other non-profitable A-League clubs bringing to the league?
And that last comment makes my blood boil;
"It is believed that FFA has given Phoenix as much as $15m through a share of the broadcast rights and travel subsidies but, in return, Phoenix have brought very little back to the table."
So this is money that every single team in the league gets right? As per the FFA's policies in the way they run the league? And it's well known that we do not ask for, or get, any more than that, unlike other teams in the league who have been bailed out/run by the FFA etc etc?
Seriously... is the author of this article a Cameron Slater type paid for smear campaigning? Are the bidding consortiums getting together and organising this kind of media coverage to create an extra spot for themselves in the league? I just can't see any other reason for that kind of garbage.
The worst thing about all this is that in reality our club is being run in the most responsible way, fully focussed on the future with the goal of being sustainable for the foreseeable. You would think, given the goings on elsewhere in the league, that we would be being consulted on how we have been doing things and asked for advice. Instead we get this.