The day to celebrate!

If the news media were to be believed today is the day that we were all to be celebrating our newly minted 10 year licence but here we are still waiting….

The last few weeks have been an interesting time. Most of us have been on holiday and while enjoying a (hopefully) well deserved break from our work we have also been forced to endure some pretty woeful on-field performances from our beloved team. It’s hard to say whether that was related to the off-field dramas but as a fan it’s certainly made it a fairly easy time to get a bit apathetic. Although a hard fought draw at the weekend certainly helped lift spirits.

Early on in the #SaveTheNix campaign I poured many hours into the Yellow Fever’s and the club’s effort to keep momentum rolling on this but late December certainly saw my drive lessen. It wasn’t that I wanted the licence any less – hell I probably want it more than ever – it was just the growing sense of what else can we even do. We’ve tried it all but still “a little club waits…”

Things have long felt in our favour, we have the support of the city, the other fans, the other teams, the players, the owners and even some factions of the media. Surely this was a no-brainer then.

But the longer the saga drags on the more it does damage to the club in terms of signing new players and retaining those we already have. At this point it’s not even in the FFA’s favour to let it drag on anymore. They need ten teams in the league and they don’t have time for it to be anyone but us. So why the continued stand-still?

I’d love to have the answer to that. The things that have been mentioned in the media seem to range from farcical to just down right ludicrous which leaves me thinking there has to be something more fundamental than what we are being told. Hell if chartering planes for fans is what it takes for a ten year licence I suspect we’d find a way to do it despite how insane an idea it is. The answer seems to get clearer to me by the day though and it should come as no surprise it’s all about the money.

This isn’t about the Phoenix’s financial stability or support base or even the League’s. It’s about the FFA needing money for their own coffers and we are an easy target to blackmail into giving it to them.

The lack of an independent body already means the A-League aren’t the masters of their own destiny when it comes to the funds from their own TV deal. Obviously a good proportion of the funds are poured back into the league but the rest prop up the FFA who are struggling to generate any significant revenue of their own (and seem to have dug a rather deep hole of spending on brown envelopes during the world cup bid). The FFA skim their cream off the top first then distribute the rest, not the other way round as it should be - with the League spending the revenue it generated as it sees fit and then passing what it feels is a fair amount up the chain to the FFA.

It’s a situation that leaves the FFA beholden to media companies to survive in any meaningful way. The A-League, and its clubs are stuck in the middle, tossed about by these puppet masters on a whim.

The FFA can’t just come out and ask us for money though, well not in public at least. If they did we’d rightly say “Ok fine, we’ll pay what the other clubs are paying then”. This has to be spun a different way, it has to be sold as somehow different so that this request is palatable not only to the public but the other owners as well.

As far as I’m concerned, everything now has become smokes and mirrors to hide the negotiation of a simple number and what exactly to call it (and for the club – how on earth to fund it).

If we write the cheque, we get the ten years.

The longer it drags on the more proud I am of our owners refusing to succumb to such a ridiculous demand.

Never fear however, the licence is coming, the FFA are screwed without us but first they are learning a valuable lesson in the fact that some astute Wellington businessmen (rather than mining magnates) don’t just throw the money around simply because they have it.