Galaxy issued a statement last Friday saying that Bleiberg “no longer represented their bid” as news of the cashed up Palmer bid surfaced.

“I did the role of coach and technical director at Queensland Roar and according to Mr. Palmer I can do the same job,” Bleiberg told au.fourfourtwo.com.


The Palmer and Galaxy franchises will be evaluated by the FFA tomorrow (Tues) at a board meeting with huge question marks hanging over Gold Coast Galaxy’s financial status.

However, Bleiberg is supremely confident that the Gold Coast will get it right second time around.

“Mr. Palmer will invest as much as required. He will make it a club to be envied. We just told him what will be required without exaggerating. And we’ll have the best of everything. I’m 110% confident it can work.

“It’s owned 100% by Mr. Clive Palmer the richest man in Queensland.”

Bleiberg has worked closely with another key mover Peter Gray – boss of Gold Coast Soccer – to help bring A-League football to the Coast.

“Our main object was to have a football A-League team on the Gold Coast and we found out that with Fred Taplin’s consortium, it was standing on the spot, it wasn’t progressing.

“And the feedback we were getting from FFA wasn’t positive either.”

It’s understood that a number of other ex Queensland Roar staff will be involved in the new Palmer franchise, including financial officer Norman Chan and media officer Neil Favager.

It’s also understood that a deal with Skilled Stadium was ready to be signed in late March but the Taplin bid held off on finalising that agreement.

“That was the major issue that convinced us that the Taplin bid was not in a hurry.”

Gold Coast Soccer boss Peter Gray told au.fourfourtwo.com that concerns about the Taplin bid became apparent when communication between the two bodies stopped “around three months ago”.

“There’s been virtually nothing in the papers about the Galaxy while the AFL have been heavily promoted.”

Bleiberg’s only concern is that as the Gold Coast has another 14 months to wait for A-League football, the momentum may be blunted.

“I’m sorry it hasn’t happened this year. Everyone was ready and I think the momentum was there. I just hope the Gold Coast kicking off next year will not affect the excitement.

“Definitely if it was this year, it would’ve been good for everybody. With the AFL moving in, in 2011 we could’ve caught them with their pants down. Now, their pants are to their knees,” he said with a smile.

Bleiberg added: “I belong to the old consortium and I think we all have ourselves to blame. The Taplin bid was involved with local developers and the situation with the sub-prime property prices affected the local markets. So it wasn’t an easy time for them.”

Fred Taplin was unavailable for comment.