Brisbane Roar Update

An interesting article in the Courier Mail on Monday. The story was that some Roar directors regretted not accepting FFA help at the beginning of the season. The reason given for the regret was that the FFA would have been able to control Frank Farina via a director of football - and stopped poor player behaviour.

I think it would be worth knowing a bit more about why the Roar owners didn't accept FFA at that time - not why they regret that decision.

Frank Farina has been at the club a while and I believe they were happy with him when the FFA offered help.

I think that the cause of the player 'on-field' behaviour, and perhaps Frank's off-field, is likely to be related to stress caused by a club that has run out of money. And why? Because the directors decided not to accept FFA help. (I believe that this type of impact has happened before in different way - Perth in season one, Sydney, NZ Knights, Adelaide... ). I agree that the director could not have foreseen this.

And I don't think Brisbane people have stopped going to the Roar because of Frank or the player behaviour. It was caused by:

- setting up a new club on their door-stop who somehow managed to accumulate the best team in the league (both Gold Coast based and victory hungry Brisbane based - Roar fans have moved over).

- Gold Coast also took 5 Roar managers, their short's sponsor, one of their crowd pleasers

- Miron boycotting publicity

- very poor scheduling including in the middle of a Bronco and Brisbane Lions end of season winning run

- Zullo's long term injury, Kruse's behaviour and Minniecon leaving for Gold Coast

- afternoon games that suited Fox Sports but not walk-up fans

- and the big one - few families have Foxtel, few children know who the players are

- there was a feeling across Brisbane that last year was their big chance and they missed it

So why didn't the directors get FFA help?

Well, at the time the Courier Mail gave some clues - apparently some directors didn't want FFA bringing a big owner coming in and diluting their influence (they wanted a number of small investors).

Well Melbourne, Sydney, Perth & Gold Coast have shown us you do need a mega rich person/company to spend the necessary money to grow your team.