There is a media conference to be held at mid-day today, and significantly, it is NOT at the Century City Towers, Serepisos' head office.
Clearly, Serepisos' business affairs have hampered the Phoenix's preparation for the upcoming A-League season. We hope that today's announcement brings some certainty, with the season due to kick off in a few weeks.
Watch this space...
UPDATE: Even before the media conference begins, the Dom-Post has Wellington's worst-kept secret:
Wellington businessman Terry Serepisos has lost control of the Phoenix football club to a Wellington based consortium, The Dominion Post understands.The future of Wellington Phoenix football club will be revealed at noon today at a hastily organised media conference.
Mr Serepisos has been in talks with Football Federation Australia (FFA) over his continued involvement with the A-League football club, which he established in 2007.
Behind the scenes there is a consortium of businessmen, led by investment banker Rob Morrison, who are willing to step in to finance the club if Mr Serepisos is unable to do so himself. Among the names associated with the bid are Lloyd Morrison, Campbell Gower, Gareth Morgan, James Brown and Henry Tait.
It is understood that Mr Morrison has also had talks with the FFA and that the consortium would fund the club for five years.
The FFA, which controls the licence for the Phoenix, is refusing to comment ahead of the conference.
It is understood that FFA head Lyall Gorman will be at today's conference.
More soon...
6 comments:
Can't say I am surprised about this.
Serepisos has been hanging on by his fingernails for too long.
As a loyal fan of the Nix can only say thank you from the bottom of the heart for what you have done for football in Wellington and NZ Terry!
It was however past time to move on and I am looking forward with great enthusiasm to the stability (and $$$) the new owners will bring.
Now if we could just sign Lionel Messi......
What Jeff said.
Exepct to say I’m pleasantly surprised by the quality of the consortium that’s taking over. All of them top businessmen, decent people and with a good streak of community spirit it would seem.
They won’t make money out of this but they’ll know that; it’s all about giving something back. Good times.
And really nice touch they’ve offered Terry the position of Club Patron.
Agreed LB; the members of the consortium certainly seem to come with pretty solid pedigrees.
I've just blogged Fred Woodcock's piece from Stuff in a seperate thread, and am delighted at the move to honour Serepisos' contribution. I'll be looking to get to a few home games this season, and I hope that the punters vote with their feet and support the new management and the team.
I think if you were looking for owners with business sense, acument, record of sucess, it would be hard to go past the people in this new consortium.
They are going into this with open eyes knowing how much it presently loses but have committed to it all the same and for a period of 5 years.
After almost 2 years of gloomy news, it is a great result for the nix going forward.
Cmon you Nix
Quite right Jeff; and because the losses will be shared, rather than all fall to one person, they will presumably be more easily bourne.
Then again, if the punters front up week in and week out, those losses may not be anywhere near as bad as the new owners are expecting. They will certainly be attractive to sponsors, perhaps not this season with the start being so close, but from 2012-13 onwards.
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