The Tottenham Hotspurs owner has expressed an interest in investing in the Central Coast Mariners.  Can the mighty sailors hook a big fish this time round?

The news this week that the owner of the Tottenham Hotspurs is interested in making an investment in the Central Coast Mariners was welcomed by most if not all Mariners fans.  The fact that the Mariners are the only sporting organisation that was inspected in an Australian junket by the Tavistock Group is very promising.  This is surly a confirmation to the current Mariners investors and management that the approach of property investment and diversifying the business with future income streams is correct.  I very much doubt that the Tavistock group would be interested in the Mariners if there was no centre for excellence and hotel development at Tuggerah.

This of course is not the first talk of investors coming to the rescue of the Mariners and as such I am not going to count my chickens just yet.  We all remember this time last year and throughout the season when the Indonesian Bakrie Group came to Australia after being approached by the Mariners.  This group showed interest and representatives of the family company visited Australia and attended Mariners matches.  The representatives were wined and dined by the FFA to confirm their appropriateness to be A-League club owners and suddenly they made the decision to invest in the A-League but not with the group who found them as in investor.  Just like the Grand Final last season the Brisbane Roar have snuck in under the guard of the Mariners and plucked our much deserved reward away at the last moment.  Could this have been yet another conflict of interest where the FFA is supposedly aiding the Mariners to land the investor only to sell the investor the club that the FFA has ownership of instead?  For this reason alone I am not going to get too hopeful of Tavistock group being the great white Knight just yet.

The most promising thing that I read in the articles about the investment interest was that the Mariners do not have just one investor looking over the books.  This of course may be just another negotiation tactic being employed, who would want to tell the guy they are trying to sell their car to that no one else has had a look at it yet.  The standard line in any sale is always ‘Another guy has made an offer and I am thinking about it so you better hurry’, the other investors could just be the footballing equivalent.  However I am choosing to take the optimistic view here and think that other property investors or rich playboys (or playgirls for that matter) have called to buy a share in the best small team in the A-League.

I mean let’s have a look at the value for your investment here in Gosford.  You get the second most successful team over the history of the A-League, although we have not won that final game yet.   You get a piece of prime real estate currently being developed on a 13 acre plot with water front views of the sewerage works next door.  You have access to one of the most picturesque football stadiums in Australia with views of the Brisbane Waters behind the Southern goal; unfortunately to stop people viewing the game for free we have to block that view off with big blue tarps.  You also have access to  single team town with a smallish population of people spread out over an area larger than most cities of 2 million plus.  What is there not to love?  All jokes aside the Mariners really are the only professional sport in the Coast and this looks to remain the way for some time.  As such the team has a very high level of pull within the area and could be responsible for converting a lot of Rugby League fans to the beautiful game.  The new owners and investors could be seen as the deliverers of football as the primary game on the Central Coast.

One interesting question if the Tavistok group do invest in in the Mariners is what happens to the current investment and sister club relationship to Sheffield United?  Currently the Mariners are part of the Blades club network and the owner of the blades is one of the shareholders.  If the hotspurs ownership is suddenly investing heavily will the Mariners and the blades become the prodigal sister?  Is there enough room in one football club ownership for two English club owners?

I guess time will reveal all these answers.  We can only hope that there is enough room for everyone who is in the slightest bit interested in investing.  If the Mariners can get the money to make some marquee investments could they just finally win that last game of the season that has so far eluded them?