Gold Coast United - What is Happening?

It appears that Gold Coast United love making the sport headlines. Unfortunately it is always for the wrong reasons and it makes you wonder what is going on at the club. When you look at how Gold Coast United are run and how they are performing, you ask yourself, "How did Clive Palmer become Queensland's wealthiest man". After doing well competitively in their first two seasons in the A-League, Gold Coast Utd have struggled ever since.

And now Gold Coast are in the headlines again for what I cannot even grasp to understand the motive of.  I am only a coach of a Small Sided Football side and I cannot see any wisdom at all in Miron Bleiberg's decision to hand 17yo Mitch Cooper the captaincy on his debut. Bleiberg might be trying to make a statement about the clubs youth policy but has he really thought about the consequences of his decision.  A 17yo on debut has enough pressure on him and even more expectation without the media hype of such announcement on top of it. Regardless of the potential of the player, with senior players in the side, it seems ludicrous to hand the captaincy to a player on debut.

Then the situation is made laughable when the club then suspends the coach for his actions but doesn't overturn his decision.  And this is where the problem for Gold Coast United lays, in its administration.  As I mentioned earlier, how did Clive Palmer become rich, because in football he has showed no brains at all.  To start with here is a team that turns away its own fans and plenty of other potential spectators by reducing it's crowd capacity.  Averaging a paltry 3000 odd per game is a sign that Gold Coast United have a limited future if things don't change.  Add to that a membership number of approx 400 and you can start to see where things are going wrong.

If people are not buying your product then your product is either out-dated or not required.  If your club is struggling both on and off the field it will not attract new fans easily and sponsors will be even harder to attract. Without these two it also becomes harder to attract quality players, regardless of money, players still want trophies and they want to play in front of large crowds.

So what is the A-League to do?  Clive Palmer seems to be a force unto himself, but the A-League needs to do something about how this team is being handled.  United are already well behind the Titans (NRL) and the Suns (AFL) and I am sure that if the big bash expanded and placed a team on the Gold Coast then they too would sit well above United.  And recently it has been stated that United will be renamed Queensland United and play its games throughout regional Queensland. The A-League has some serious thinking to do before deciding what to do.  If they allow United to carrying on the way they are it is not good for the game.  If they let them go ahead with their change and travel it also creates a dangerous situation.  This is a team that struggles to get fans in it's current location and doesn't cater for a crowd to turn up, what makes them think regional Queensland will want to get on board.