Carlton May Struggle To Field Team
The Age
Friday December 1, 2000
Carlton soccer club could struggle to put a team on the field this weekend unless Soccer Australia agrees to a $500,000 ``loan" facility or club owner Peter Jess pays the players at least some of their wages by the end of today.
As the saga over the embattled club's survival took another turn yesterday, the Professional Footballers Association (the players' union) called on Soccer Australia to release some half a million dollars it holds in bond from the club to ease it over its cash flow problems and give it an opportunity to trade its way out of trouble.
And at another meeting with the players and the union Jess told them he now had sufficient resources to pay the players 75 per cent of what they were owed by today.
If the game's governing body agrees to the proposal, submitted by the PFA's chief executive Brendan Schwab, Carlton would get a few months' breathing space to try to find fresh investors, new sponsors and generate cash by selling players overseas.
At the start of each season Carlton, along with all the 15 clubs in the NSL, has to pay SA a $250,000 participation fee to be in the competition and lodge a $250,000 bank guarantee with the game's ruling body. It is that cash which Schwab has proposed be freed up, with Carlton using it as a short-term loan.
``Our immediate goal is to ensure that Carlton continues to field a team and we feel we have a creative solution which will at least ensure the club can see out the 2000/01 season. The bank guarantee and the participation fee could be placed into a trust account in order to meet the payments of players and other staff over the next four or five months. The players would then continue to train with and play for the club, knowing their payments were guaranteed. This period of grace would allow Carlton to explore restructuring, refinancing and new equity options, as well as possible transfer incomes," said Schwab.
``The players are under great stress and vulnerable - some of them can't meet basic expenses such as food, rent and health insurance. If the club is unable to honor its basic contractual commitments, it's unreasonable to expect players to honor theirs. And what would happen if a player were to suffer a long-term injury playing for a club that can't honor its commitments."
It is the latter issue, one of cover for injury, which is the crux of the matter for the players and one that is likely to determine theirs - and the union's - view of whether they could or should play on Sunday against Northern Spirit if SA knocks back the proposal and it is judged that the likelihood of Carlton's survival is slim.
The union's plan has the virtues of simplicity and elegance, and is politically savvy in that it throws the onus back on SA to decide how much it values the integrity of the competition. If it does not want a team to fall over halfway through the season and expose the league to ridicule, it will have to agree.
But, that is no certainty. SA may decide that, given its parlous financial position and its poor cash flow, Carlton has no hope of meeting the stringent criteria proposed for admission to the restructured league next year and that it can wear any short-term scorn by cutting it loose now. Certainly the NSL general manager, Stefan Kamasz, will be very concerned about the prospect of creating precedents when he arrives in Melbourne today for meetings with Schwab and Carlton officials.
Schwab was also critical of Carlton management for putting pressure on Socceroo defender Simon Colosimo to transfer to a European club to raise the cash to save the Blues. Scottish Premier side Dundee has tabled a bid (reportedly a seven-figure sum) for the 21-year-old.
TONIGHT'S NSL GAMES PARRAMATTA POWER v SYDNEY UNITED Parramatta Stadium, 7.30pm, live C7 Power 1, United 0, draws 1. Power surpassed expectations with a point at Bob Jane Stadium last weekend and the league's biggest underachievers need a victory now to stay in touch with the top six. United has faded a little after its bright start, and has been inconsistent away from home. Grudge match because of the connections between the sides. Power can get the points. NEWCASTLE UNITED v WOLLONGONG 7.30pm, Marathon Stadium Never played. Newcastle, after a very slow start,is beginning to hit its straps and got a very useful point on the road in Adelaide last weekend. Wolves crashed at home in perhaps the shock of the season so far when they were beaten 3-2 by Canberra last Friday. Wolves not likely to lose two in a row, and this could be a match where the spoils are shared.
© 2000 The Age
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