Good Business

“It's not personal, Sonny. It's strictly business.”

--Michael Corleone, The Godfather

Tony Sage might be the owner of Perth Glory Football Club, but he’s also a successful businessman. He has over two decades of experience in managed funds and capital raising; and is currently involved with several high-profile mining and resources deals in WA. In addition he founded a radio station and sold it for a considerable return, owns a fashion magazine, and was a former owner of a Perth nightclub. Needless to say, it seems Mr Sage knows a good thing or two about doing business.

Which brings us to his other major investment - Perth Glory FC. 

Sage has taken Glory from A-League basketcase to finals football in the course of just four years. If you don’t count the time he spent dealing with two other owners, it’s more like two or three. At first glance, it just seems like another ticked box for a man whom success seems to follow. But if you look a bit closer, cracks begin to appear which suggest that this business needs a bit of fine-tuning.

Hit and Miss

When it comes to looking at the backroom activities of the club, you get a distinctly mixed impression. On one hand, the excellent decision to recruit Steve Nelkovski as Media & Public Relations Manager has raised the profile of the club to a level where regular slots on Channel 7 news and decent-sized advertisements in the West Australian newspaper are commonplace. The club’s name is banded about more now than at any other time in the A-League; possibly apart from the “Glory is going to fold” era - and that’s not really the kind of media exposure you want anyhow.

Unfortunately, there are also some glaring problems. For two seasons in a row now, Glory members were promised membership packs in the post by a certain date. For two seasons in a row, they have not arrived on time. Furthermore, when they have arrived on their doorsteps members have found items missing in their packs, which require further chasing through the club or pickup from the stadium. Perhaps most amusingly for someone like myself, those people taking out Associate Memberships - the kind targeted at overseas and interstate fans, or those in the country who can only make a few matches a year - will receive packs that contain vouchers which can only be redeemed in Perth, or tokens which you can present at nib Stadium to collect your Glory flag or yearbook. Quite useful then when you’re based in the United Kingdom, the eastern states, or even two hours south of Perth in Bunbury.

On the signings front, the PR the club has gained from Robbie Fowler, Chris Coyne, Jacob Burns, and Mile Sterjovski has been very valuable indeed. Unfortunately I fear they have overspent on certain players - especially given the returns we are seeing from them. Of the above, Chris Coyne has been the best performing - and currently he is on loan to a Chinese team while Perth does battle in the A-League, for reasons known only to the club. Unless the club has done it to avoid breaking the salary cap, it was truly a ludicrous move to allow Coyne to go to China. Burns, Sterjovski, and Fowler - and it pains me to say it - are not giving us their full worth. All would be saving us money on performance-based contracts; Sterjovski and Fowler tied to assists and goals, and Burns to goals conceded. If they aren’t performing for us, then we shouldn’t be forking out so much money.

Junior/Senior

Looking at the coaching staff, and it would seem that the club has some duplication on the assistant manager front. Do they need both Kenny Lowe and Ian Ferguson? By all means, if they both specialise in areas that the rest of the coaching team lack, this may be understandable. But if they’re both running through drills that Dave Mitchell organised or conditioning schemes that the fitness gurus have dreamed up, why can’t a cheaper option from the state league help out? 

Head coach David Mitchell is another person whose future should be under consideration. Despite the presence of two assistants his in-game tactics and motivational skills still appear to be in doubt, given the state of Perth’s recent string of defeats. It’s not clear if he knows what his best formation or lineup is, and that is somewhat worrying for a manager who has been in charge of the club for some time. It may be advisable to look for overseas candidates with experience in a technically demanding league, with a good handle on matchday tactics. See Rini Coolen of Adelaide for an example of what a good manager can do for a team.

Thanks to its links with the state league and the input of youth coach Gareth Naven, Perth Glory appears to have an excellent group of young players at its disposal. Unfortunately, it is criminally negligent when it comes to using their natural homegrown talent. The greatest success story has so far been Scott Neville, who has since progressed to Australia’s Olympic trial squads. Unfortunately he is often benched on matchday in favour of Jamie Coyne, who never appears to be dropped from the squad no matter how poor his game or how well Neville has been doing.

Howard Fondyke, Brent Griffiths, Anthony Skorich, and Andrija Jukic are all excellent examples of young prospects ignored by the senior coaches. Jukic clearly excels at a youth level, yet cannot get a regular game for the senior side despite poor performances from players who play in his position. Many times last year Jukic should have been preferred to the under-performing Adriano Pellegrino; however faith was kept with the senior man and Jukic was forced to play maybe 5, 10 minutes - if any at all. When he finally was given a shot, he scored a goal and blasted the bar with a long-range shot; something his senior colleagues barely attempt!

It is vitally important that they and the next generation of Glory youngsters such as Tommy Amphlett, Cameron Edwards, and Josh Risdon come into consideration for senior games - otherwise their wages are simply a useless cost to the business. And on that topic - here is where it should all become relevant to someone like Tony Sage.

Risk and Reward

If I were in Tony’s shoes, there’d be some decisions that I’d be doing some very hard thinking about. If you’re reading “Sagey”, here are a few of them:

• Given the time that David Mitchell has had, given the fact that his players are now all his own, not inherited from some other dummy, given the money that one Tony Sage has invested to bring Robbie Fowler and Mile Sterjovski to our shores - is he really doing a good enough job? Probably not.
• Now that we’ve decided that we need a new coach, what do we do with Mitch? To terminate his contract would probably cost money, and nobody is saying that he hasn’t recruited well - he just can’t manage his recruits. So make him technical director or create the role of ‘head scout’ to keep him on the books.
• Start scouring the globe for a Glory version of Coolen or Straka. Someone who has spent time in a highly technical league and has a good understanding of gameday tactics. A little bit of charisma in a coach never goes astray either...
• Sweep the broom through the club’s backroom staff and processes. Customers need to be served properly - and this means dealing with fan requests or questions promptly, and making sure promises are met. If the volume of work is the problem, that’s easily fixed - the club spends millions on its players and coaches; what’s another 20 grand on an extra admin person?
• Make public (or at least explain to members via email and in person) the long term future of the club. Outline plans for stadia, clubrooms, etc as necessary.
• Buy or build the club a stadium. nib Stadium is all well and good; but it is old and the Glory suffer from a license deal that robs it of matchday revenue from food, drink, etc. Build a stadium to the wants of the club, instead of just taking demands from the venue owners.
• If the above is hard to do on your own (and granted, it is an expensive activity) consider lobbying the ‘Gang of Four’ you are mates with and see if your pooled resources can sort out some privately owned stadia for A-League teams. They only have to hold say 10-12k to start with for a place like Perth, maybe less for somewhere like the Gold Coast, and you’d soon start seeing a return on investment considering there would be no middleman such as Allia getting in the way. Rent the stadium to rugby league teams or similar if need be - more money for you, and the football club is actually in charge for once!

Let me make this clear - this isn’t a gripe about the club’s failings, or the rantings of a mad fan (check a couple of blogs back for that one). No, it’s all about business - just good business. 

If you ignore or irritate your customers, employ staff who under-perform, or lack a vision for the business, chances are it won’t hang around long enough to make an impact on the market. Clearly, Tony Sage knows good business - and I’d say it’s time for him to make some tough choices, lest that reputation be tarnished in any way. Mr Sage, you appear to be a winner - Perth Glory FC should be a winner too; both on and off the field.

As for David Mitchell, I have no feelings of hatred towards the man at all. I wish him the best of luck and I really hoped he’d be the guy to lead us to glory. Unfortunately, this no longer appears to be the case - and we need to start searching for someone better. Only then will we take advantage of the potential that everyone knows this club, this brand, this icon, has.

It’s not personal, Mitch. It’s strictly business.