A diehard Central Coast Mariners supporter has called for change at the struggling A-League club.
Something has to change! I know Mr Charlesworth is sole owner of the Club as well as Chairman. And I welcome his continuing involvement as a major investor.
However, he is clearly not a ‘Football Person’, he is definitely a very clever and successful businessman, but being a businessman and running a Football Club are two distinctly different skill sets.
It would be wonderful if he stayed on as a major investor, but he has to relinquish the sole ownership and particularly the Chairmanship of the Club. It obviously is just not working. There is no mystery to it, we simply need a ‘Football person’ to chair and run the Club.
So I am calling on the FFA, the A League, other Club owners, and the Australian Football family to please help our Club recover from the problematic situation we are in. We all have our favourite teams, and follow them with a passion not seen in other sports.
But ultimately we are all part of the Football community, and should help each other in making our sport stronger in our country, particularly the A League. At the moment we are the Club with major problems, but in future it could be your Club that finds itself in difficulty.
So please rather than ridicule us, and call for our expulsion, relocation, demotion etc, take a moment and put yourself in our position.
The A League needs to strengthen and expand, not keep deleting Clubs and Regions from inclusion. The Central Coast has a population of approximately 300k, and is increasing every year.
We also have an exceptionally high Football participation rate, and one of the highest per capita membership/supporter rates. Can Australian Football and the A League really afford to alienate such fans and communities? That would seem to be very counterproductive to me.
There also needs to be an increased and concerted effort from the Central Coast itself. In particular the Central Coast Council, who really should be doing everything possible to help CCM, rather than putting obstacles in place.
Surely they must realise the financial and communal advantages of having the Mariners succeed. If CCM were to fail there would be absolutely no chance of ever persuading another national team from any sporting code to base themselves on the Coast.
The Central Coast football community also needs to step up its support and consistency in backing the Club, it is ‘our Club’, and offers a pathway and opportunities to the thousands of kids that play in the local junior Competition.
So please, FFA, A League, media, football universe, by all means have a laugh at our expense. But also back us up to regain our previous strong and proud history, just as we would do for you.
CCM for ever!!!
Sincerely,
WM
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