Nightmare for Colless

[Diego]

I hope it doesnt get to the stage of tin rattl'n. That would break me..

[robbieando]

Originally posted by vagary
so as fans, what should we do to stop our team from going under?
in all honesty i don't really care about you all arguing about what has caused the swans to be in this mess but i think we should start thinking of ideas to help them out.

Easy turn up to matches, including the ones out West. Take as many friends as possible. Try and get them to buy a membership. If you know someone who owns a company and they have a spare few grand to spend talk them into sponsoring the club.

These are the simple things to do. Other things we could do include a tin rattle or a trivia night. The TOTC should bring in a bit of extra cash towards the end of the season. Buy club gear though the club.

Offer the club $1,000,000 if Colless steps down

We can make a difference

[Diego]

No not tins..pls not the tins.

We will be ok. We are not going under..I cant see that happening. What i can see happening is a major shake up at the end of the year and a few nerves being exposed.

BTW how are we going in regards to a new CEO??

[Louellyn]

I think there is omething you are all missing

It is halfway through the season, and the Vic clubs are struggling. What better way to undermine the confidence of our players than with a bit of a media beat - up? I think you will find that the Swans will struggle on through this patch and come out the other side.

The Vic clubs must sniggering in self satisfaction. We can still win the flag, whatever happens to next year.

[Bas]

I wonder who is responsible for this mess. Is it Colless or was it the responsibility of Templeton?

If you look at $800,000 spent on the Stadium Australia games, an alleged $400,000 paid to Wallace then $1.5 million seems about right.

In Patrick Smith's article in The Australian, he says that "Colless can not walk away from the fact the club has been badly run. The Board were not aware what was happening". In that case you'd think the financial problems were the fault of Templeton and his management team. Very much like the Mayor of a Council not knowing what the Council CEO was doing.

I can see Eddie & Co making a big issue out of any more money going to the Swans. They will in particular, demand the AFL investigate if there is any truth to the Wallace payment.

The AFL should have funded the Stadium Australia games. It won't be the first time something like this has happened. The North Sydney Bears (Rugby League) went bankrupt after the NRL moved them from North Sydney Oval (where they weren't making money) to the potential of plaing at the new Stadium at Gosford. Problem was the Stadium hadn't been completed, rain delayed building and the Club went belly up playing from home.

Mike Willessee doesn't seem to be doing much these days apart from selling off his property. Maybe a time to come back.

If Colless is directly responsible for this mess, who can remove him? No one.

At least you must give the Club credit that it started doing something about it and not let it go any longer.

I'm not sure if you can compare the Olympics to the Rugby World Cup. Remember there is the domestic rugby comp, Super 12 and international tests so it is more of a "local" event compared to an "international" one off event like the Olympics. Sponsership would be more affordable and practical for rugby games. Local athletic events would draw a crowd of three and a dog compared to 40,000 for a Super 12 game.

We need to stop hosting home games for Victorian Clubs, subsidy for SA games and a brilliant CEO.

[skilts stilts]

I wouldn't worry.This issue will blow over in a week or two. We are a safer proposition to stay in the comp than any Victorian team. It's a great way to get a crowd there on Saturday night.
What worries me more is that dick of a premier in NSW opening his bloody trap on the issue of finals in Melbourne. You only see or hear from him when the swans are on a roll. He then blurts out stuff from his ar#e on subjects he knows nothing about.
He does more harm to the image of the swans down here than the smirking Colless could ever hope to do.

[Jon]

Originally posted by robbieando
The club sites lack of sponsorship because of the Rugby World Cup, yet we didn't have any problems with sponsors back in 2000 with the Olympics. Also if I'm not mistaken membership hasn't fallen by that much.

If we cut $4 millions at the start of the season we should be in this mess now.

ok....I'm back after about 6mths in the wilderness. Hello everyone. Geez...going well aren't we...great goal by Tiger on the wknd, geez the future looks bright...

hang on?

WHAT???!!!! WE'RE ABOUT EXTINCT??!!!

Why is it everytime I have a peep at REDANDWHITEONLINE the Swan's are in crisis? I was hoping to jump on and talk about the wonders of the kiddies, the confidence, the assured look of the new coach and the vision of the future....

AND NOW I READ WE'RE FRIGGIN BROKE???!!!!

Oh well....

robbieando asks a good question....why are we worse off now, than in 2000 for the Olympics....the answer is that a disproportionate number of Swannie fans in Syd are also UNION fans....we have a strong base on the Nth Shore and Eastern suburbs....and unfortunately, when a World Cup hits town, and $140M in ticket sales, and $24M in corporate sponsorship money vanishes....it was ALWAYS going to be the Swan's that took the full force of the headshot.

In 2000 the hit was spread accross every sports lover in the nation!

[Plugger46]

Colless has to go,

Have to disagree with you there Robbieando, we do not know what is going on behind the scenes, and whether he has been to blame or not.

On the contrary I think he has been pretty good for the club, remember he was the one who initiated the pressure on Rodney Eade.

There has to be something more to it.

[robbieando]

Originally posted by Plugger46
Have to disagree with you there Robbieando, we do not know what is going on behind the scenes, and whether he has been to blame or not.

On the contrary I think he has been pretty good for the club, remember he was the one who initiated the pressure on Rodney Eade.

There has to be something more to it.

In his 10 years at the club nothing has changed off the field - we are still in debt. We can't rely on a 1996 like season to bring crowds and money back into the club.

I think there is more to the story as well, but we are unlikely to find out what it is.

[tez]

What can the club member and supporter do ? Not much we
don't have a vote to put an efficient and ACCOUNTABLE board
in place. A board that is responsible to the members and
supporters.
This board and any other board which follows must accept
that they are responsible and accountable to the club
members and supporters wherever they are located.

This board is responsible for the financial plight of the club and
for the appointments it has made.

One thing that I have never been comfortable with is the
denial that the club DID NOT pay Terry Wallace. Just seems
that this story won't go away.

[Dpw]

RE: Interstate membership

They do Its called swans Member and it costs $50.00 for all us interstate members Children are still cheaper to get full season membership $36.00 under 12 (roughly) and that gives the kids a Jam pack as well which my two loved.

ps some how I stuffed this post up it was in response to WASwansFanatic.

[Mike_B]

We are struggling because of crowds. Not so much due to memberships being down, but mnore from not as many people walking up and buying tickets at the gate.

I know it's a very rough calculation, but it would account for a fair bit of the shortfall in funding. This season, we have been averaging in the low 20,000's for our crowds. Go back to the late 1990's, and you could add say 8000 to that average figure. A GA ticket costs just over $20 now. Admittedly this is for Adults, and not all 8000 would be adults, nor would all 8000 be paying at all (there are always freebies here and there). So say from the maximum $160,000 that gets cut to $100,000 PER GAME in gate receipts that we are missing out on.

Take that over 11 home games, and your revenue is down over $1million per year. With memberships being down as well, there's a fair chunk of the money that we're short.

Over-simplifying things? Maybe I am, but it makes sense to me!

[penga]

i wonder if the decision of not increasing members fees have anything to do with the short fall experienced... we have a good 23000 odd members, if they decided to put the price up $20 per membership thats a cool $460k

[Jon]

Well, they're accountable now....to the BANKS!

I think the Swans were in enough of a mess last year without this needing to be fully disclosed. We had people burning effigies and cutting up memberships over whether an adulterer should be drafted!!!

No. Much better that they had a few mths to coolly go about rectifying some of the probelms without an army of torch-bearers hunting them down wooden stakes in hand.

That they HAVE disclosed is enough for me right now. Lets put it behind us and get this FIXED.

on the positive side: The club has been working really hard behind the scenes this year to attack this problem, from what I can see. They called in the doctors, took the poison pill and followed thru almost immediately. Cutting $4M during the course of this year was never going to be easy. Achieving this AND maintaining on-field performance is a credit to them.

Could you imagine the debacle if the Swans had revealed these losses BEFORE they had made the cuts?

Many of those on the board have already stepped either aside or down, or retired. It's been a fairly bloodless changeover for such a huge restructuring. We have quality people in the important positions, and after the CEO is found, I'm sure the management will only look better.

If anything it's only been the pace of the accumulated losses that has been the worry. Even those at the coal face never predicted how far the revenue streams would fall this year. $4.5M! I'm amazed we're still operating!

I don't think changing Board members will be as important as the selection of the new CEO. Again (from the reports I've seen) it appears every effort has been made to find a suitable "business head" to fill this role - rather than handing it over to a "football head".

No. I'm more worried about what could happen if the Melbourne cartel delay with funding relief.

[Sanecow]

I can see Eddie & Co making a big issue out of any more money going to the Swans.

Does anybody really take any notice of what Eddie says?