At the moment Geelong isn't getting a slice of the 'disequal' funding (same as Hawthorn and the expansion clubs). To me this is a good sign for our club because if I was reading a document similar to this back in 1999 I would have been a very worried Catter indeed as I was at the time. Full marks to Costa and Cook who helped turn our club around off the field. I'm no financial guru but I think we got a loan from the Vic government to fund improvements at Skilled/Simmonds/Cat Park (doesn't hurt to have the last few premiers being Catters just quietly) so we are in the process of paying that back.
I have only two queries.
1. No capping the growth of powerful (big) clubs in off field areas when one of the objectives is equal opportunity to win matches. The ability of Collingwood, Geelong, Hawthorn, West Coast and Adelaide to train at excellent facilities and to hire top fitness and coaching staff is a massive advantage and is a prime reason why clubs like Port, Melbourne and the Bulldogs have struggled to recruit a decent coach.
2. One of the aims of revenue raising is to have a certain amount of digital subscribers but the rules committee, the MRP, the farcical 'rule of the week' umpiring and the frankly shithouse Channel Seven coverage (where's the ball fargnose, I'm Tom Harley and I'm really impartial, I'm 'funny' Dennis, I'm boofhead brian, Nuffy numbnuts has just tweeted in megawall bollocks I'm special gay brucey) is going to get people to turn their TVs off faster than a Dame Edna nude show. Fix the rules, fix the coverage and your objective might actually be achieved.
I'd like to see a simple sentence. 'We were wrong'. Then they might see how many bums on seats they might start to get instead of relying on TV revenue. LISTEN to the fans and your number crunching might get a whole lot easier.
regards,
REB