North Queensland Fury axed from the Australian A-League
A-League strugglers http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/North-Queensland-Fury-c40080 have been axed from the League after the Club failed to make assurances regarding its financial viability for future.
Ben Buckley, Chief Executive of the Football Federation http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Australia-c746 and the Head of Operations of the A-League Lyall Gorman met with the Club representatives and decided that it was too big a financial risk to have the Club feature in the next A-League season.
While talking to the media, Buckley said, “Despite the hard work put in, the target of Aus 1.5million of capital from the Retain the Fury campaign was not met, with less than 300,000 being pledged.”
Although the Club did manage to attract some encouraging sponsorship commitments, but the projected loss was going to be in excess of 2 million dollars even with the new sponsorship deals. FFA was looking to raise the capital of the club through local ownership
however, the capital-raising fell short of target. It was a hard decision for the FFA to cut short a club but lack of finances led to its closure.
It is heartbreaking for Fury who only joined the A-League in August 2009 and since then, had been under financial strain. The growth, stability and promotion of the brand even after strong support from the region seemed highly impossible and the FFA could
not do anything to prevent the downfall of the club.
Buckley added, “Many leagues around the world have adjusted the composition of clubs in early years and we feel this move will strengthen the Hyundai A-League just as it did for Major League Soccer in the http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Japan-c2928.”
The region has been important to Australian football for a long time and FFA has stressed that it will do everything possible to help Football Queensland in nurturing the game in the region.
In the six-year history of the competition, two A-Leagues clubs have now failed to prolong their stay in the League. In 2004, http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/New-Zealand-c754 Knights went through the same ordeal as the Fury did and now the next season of the Hyundai A-League will feature just
10 sides.
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