by Il Duce » Fri Oct 30, 2009 3:49 am
GCU do leave a lot of questions that need to be answered when it comes to their involvement in the community and the way it attracts fans. From all reports they have done little-to-no advertising for their games, and very little community involvement. There was a youth football tournament on the Gold Coast a couple weeks ago and United did no advertising, not even give free kids tickets to entice people to go, even though the organisers of the tournament tried to get in contact with the club; opportunities other clubs would have jumped at. As it has also been reported that you are lucky to find maybe one ad in the newspapers on the Gold Coast advertising matches, what did Clive Palmer think? That people who don’t follow the league but may want to, know when games are on unless you tell them? The FFA have said that both North Queensland Fury and Gold Coast United submitted plans that predicted the crowds being around the 5000 mark, which would indicate that Palmer has been planning to do this all along, hence no attempt to advertise.
Personalities like Palmer and Bleiberg are always going to be double-edged swords, they may be good for the club but you have to accept the negative things that will come, considering the egos powering the two men. There has been more written regarding Palmer and Bleiberg than about most of the Gold Coast players, and instead of making outlandish statements all during the pre-season, or even during the current season, they should have been promoting the Gold Coast team around their 3 main players - Culina, Smeltz and Porter - and trying to make the Gold Coast public feel like they want to be a part of something special. Instead, without having actually played a game Bleiberg and Palmer tried to claim to be the best team in the league and now the egg has certainly landed on their faces.
However, the FFA should shoulder some of the blame for this, as instead of going with the Gold Coast Galaxy bid, which by all reports didn’t have as much money as the United bid, it did have a plan to work with the grassroots community and build the club up similar to the Fury bid, however the FFA chose the money option, which is now coming back to bite them. As much as this team is one of the A-league’s best with some quality players and some wonderful football, no-one wants to go watch them. Capping the attendance at the stadium will do nothing to help them develop an image in the community or make potential supporters want to be a part of it. Palmer and Bleiberg may have thought that bravado and glamour would propel them into the public eye, but unfortunately behind all of the big statements, the substance just doesn’t seem to be there.
The problem with Barcelona is that I like fish and chips but they had to turn it into calamari and patatas