Certified Legendary Thread China History in the Making

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Weird, but I follow Port media articles very closely and I do remember mention of Macau in the early days. I remember thinking of the casino when it was mentioned.
Give me an example then where Macau was mentioned because I don't ever remember it being mentioned. Unless Koch was thinking about Packer and his Casino but there is a huge car park out the front but no grass so you would need that Docklands 200mm turf to be installed.
 
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Give me an example then where Macau was mentioned because I don't ever remember it being mentioned. Unless Koch was thinking about Packer and his Casino but there is a huge car park out the front but no grass so you would need that Docklands 200mm turf to be installed.
I can't give you an an example but I do remember it mentioned somewhere in the very early days.
 

Rexie J

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I can assure you Macau was well and truly on the agenda and actively considered. After visiting HK/Macau in late 2014, I was asked if I/we had visited one of the proposed sites.

Personal opinion only, the game wouldn't have 'worked' in Macau - Shanghai was a masterpiece.
 
I can assure you Macau was well and truly on the agenda and actively considered. After visiting HK/Macau in late 2014, I was asked if I/we had visited one of the proposed sites.

Personal opinion only, the game wouldn't have 'worked' in Macau - Shanghai was a masterpiece.
Where did they think they could play a game? The racecourse isn't a series of synthetic fields like in HK but it has a lake in it. The national stadium where soccer is played and has an athletic track around it is a possibility but a s**t load of expense to turf it all up for a preseason game. If anyone seriously considered it then they didn't know what they were talking about.
 
Catching up on some reading whilst I was in China. Rucci in his May 10 article talks about Koch's speech at the season launch on March 7 2014 at AO. He reckons Koch then talked about taking Port to China first with a preseason game in Macau. I went to the launch as a last minute fill in for the Big Footy player sponsorship. I remembered China talk but not Macau. I went to Macau the day after Rooch's article was published and I didn't see anywhere to host an AFL match unless it was an AFL 12's game on a soccer pitch or the land China has granted to Macause to build reasonable price housting for 100,000 residents. Did Rooch mean HK?
http://www.news.com.au/sport/afl/po...u/news-story/830ace69351aadcf07d61ff8b1a93548
Power president David Koch negotiating for a Port Adelaide trial match in Macau
March 7, 2014

PORT Adelaide is spreading its profile to China with club president David Koch locked in negotiations to have the Power play a trial game in Macau next summer.
Port’s full board of directors will be in Hong Kong during the club’s bye round - in mid-May - to negotiate international partnerships for the Power. These include taking an AFL pre-season game to China.
This could also lead to the Power joining an AFL rival - such as Greater Western Sydney - in a premiership game in China next season when Adelaide Oval will again not be available for the start of the season.

Koch on Friday night announced Port’s expansion for links in Dubai and China at the Power’s season launch at Adelaide Oval.
His club’s international vision was revealed as the Power announced its membership count is now at a record 44,350 - and commercial revenue is up 10 per cent. “We have people wanting to reconnect with our football club,” Koch said.

Followed by:
8 July 2014
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/sport...6/news-story/5d0b983a1e7bb1a9df1ce90ee0aaf276

Leap ahead three years during which the following happened:
  • There was never any suitable ground in Macau to begin with; the plan was for casino interests to fund the laying of grass over a running track in a sports arena, with the work driven and supervised by the Macau Lightning SCAFL club.
  • Casino operators in China were selectively thrown in jail, with James Packer pulling out of his Crown interests in Macau. I can't however say that it was Crown who blew smoke up Kochie's backside in 2014.
  • Macau Lightning FC is now defunct.
  • Kochie had no approval to make such an announcement in March 2014. It was the typical bullshit of which he was then very proud.
He's now learnt his lesson. In fact he has overcorrected to the extent he's afraid to make any announcement at all.
Kochie was interviewed in HK by the South China Morning Post last Friday. I set it up with a view to having him say something, anything, about PAFC's interest in Kai Tak Sports Park due for completion in 2022 on the site of the old airport and now out to Design Build Operate tender action. It's big news in HK, something in the press every day just about. If Kochie had said something, anything, along the lines of what the 2014 Kochie would've said - PORT ADELAIDE PAYING ATTENTION TO PROGRESS OF KAI TAK SPORTS PARK AND DESIGN-IN OF LARGE FORMAT GROUND FOR CRICKET, BASEBALL AND AUSTRALIAN FOOTBALL...

If he'd said something like that, no risk, as our HK Cricket Association colleagues here wanted him to, his interview would have been adjudged different and locally topical. But he didn't. He refused flat out to entertain any questions on the project. "I don't know anything about it," he bullshitted. I had spoken about the Kai Tak project with him over lunch which he very kindly hosted 18 months ago. He wasn't interested then either. Consequently his interview has been adjudged nothing special, nothing new, nothing topical ... and has not been published as yet and likely won't be at all.

Opportunity ... for something futuristic ... lost.

Sometimes, up here, being an advisor to the Club on things China can piss you off.

Edit: Regardless of the above, I shall continue with my connections to and interest in the Kai Tak Sports Park ... if not directly on behalf of PAFC then indirectly. My son, a poster on this board, is on an HKCA executive committee and responsible for promoting cricket to the Chinese inhabitants of HK, also China. This is just one way PAFC is connected with cricket in HK. We have Chris Davies. Matt Richardson loves cricket. We have Greg Quinn, Bob's son and George's nephew. We have the Port Adelaide Cricket Club, Eric Freeman and Neil Hawke RIP ... the list is endless. Think about it Kochie.
 
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Well there was a BigFooty thread about it back then.
"Not trying to steal Lockhart Road thunder (or Power) but this is now a headline story by Rucci and confirmed by David Koch."

/www.bigfooty.com/forum/threads/pafc-china-the-celestial-frontier.1069325/page-2
That link dosent work. Ok if it was mentioned I don't remember it and after going to Macau admittedly only for a day, but it is only 30.5 square kilometres as our guide kept telling us, I can't see how it could have been a serious idea.
 
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http://www.news.com.au/sport/afl/po...u/news-story/830ace69351aadcf07d61ff8b1a93548
Power president David Koch negotiating for a Port Adelaide trial match in Macau
March 7, 2014

PORT Adelaide is spreading its profile to China with club president David Koch locked in negotiations to have the Power play a trial game in Macau next summer.
Port’s full board of directors will be in Hong Kong during the club’s bye round - in mid-May - to negotiate international partnerships for the Power. These include taking an AFL pre-season game to China.
This could also lead to the Power joining an AFL rival - such as Greater Western Sydney - in a premiership game in China next season when Adelaide Oval will again not be available for the start of the season.

Koch on Friday night announced Port’s expansion for links in Dubai and China at the Power’s season launch at Adelaide Oval.
His club’s international vision was revealed as the Power announced its membership count is now at a record 44,350 - and commercial revenue is up 10 per cent. “We have people wanting to reconnect with our football club,” Koch said.

Followed by:
8 July 2014
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/sport...6/news-story/5d0b983a1e7bb1a9df1ce90ee0aaf276

Leap ahead three years during which the following happened:
  • There was never any suitable ground in Macau to begin with; the plan was for casino interests to fund the laying of grass over a running track in a sports arena, with the work driven and supervised by the Macau Lightning SCAFL club.
  • Casino operators in China were selectively thrown in jail, with James Packer pulling out of his Crown interests in Macau. I can't however say that it was Crown who blew smoke up Kochie's backside in 2014.
  • Macau Lightning FC is now defunct.
  • Kochie had no approval to make such an announcement in March 2014. It was the typical bullshit of which he was then very proud.
He's now learnt his lesson. In fact he has overcorrected to the extent he's afraid to make any announcement at all.
Kochie was interviewed in HK by the South China Morning Post last Friday. I set it up with a view to having him say something, anything, about PAFC's interest in Kai Tak Sports Park due for completion in 2022 on the site of the old airport and now out to Design Build Operate tender action. It's big news in HK, something in the press every day just about. If Kochie had said something, anything, along the lines of what the 2014 Kochie would've said - PORT ADELAIDE PAYING ATTENTION TO PROGRESS OF KAI TAK SPORTS PARK AND DESIGN-IN OF LARGE FORMAT GROUND FOR CRICKET, BASEBALL AND AUSTRALIAN FOOTBALL...

If he'd said something like that, no risk, as our HK Cricket Association colleagues here wanted him to, his interview would have been adjudged different and locally topical. But he didn't. He refused flat out to entertain any questions on the project. "I don't know anything about it," he bullshitted. I had spoken about the Kai Tak project with him over lunch which he very kindly hosted 18 months ago. He wasn't interested then either. Consequently his interview has been adjudged nothing special, nothing new, nothing topical ... and has not been published as yet and likely won't be at all.

Opportunity ... for something futuristic ... lost.

Sometimes, up here, being an advisor to the Club on things China can piss you off.

Edit: Regardless of the above, I shall continue with my connections to and interest in the Kai Tak Sports Park ... if not directly on behalf of PAFC then indirectly. My son, a poster on this board, is on an HKCA executive committee and responsible for promoting cricket to the Chinese inhabitants of HK, also China. This is just one way PAFC is connected with cricket in HK. We have Chris Davies. Matt Richardson loves cricket. We have Greg Quinn, Bob's son and George's nephew. We have the Port Adelaide Cricket Club, Eric Freeman and Neil Hawke RIP ... the list is endless. Think about it Kochie.

Just a question on this - how would Mr Gui feel if he read in the South China Morning Post that PAFC is interested in a new Sports Park in Hong Kong, especially one that is able to host Australian Rules football matches? Just how tied to Shanghai is our China Strategy is what I'm asking.
 
Just a question on this - how would Mr Gui feel if he read in the South China Morning Post that PAFC is interested in a new Sports Park in Hong Kong, especially one that is able to host Australian Rules football matches? Just how tied to Shanghai is our China Strategy is what I'm asking.
If the Club is scared of offending Mr Gui every time a publicity opportunity is in reach then we no longer have a China Strategy worth pursuing.

Fact: Mr Gui's objective has always been to bring AFL to Shanghai ... not China.

Koch himself has spoken of staging two matches in China each year, including a pre-season game in a different city each time. I don't agree with this at all. It will mean we will be endlessly chasing our tails and will never make a profit. However as this is Koch's personal idea, it's probably the only one he wants to hear.

I have a different plan in mind and it has little to do with the Kai Tak Sports Park.

My intention in setting up the interview with SCMP last Friday was not to broadcast any intention for PAFC to play a match at the future Kai Tak Sports Park - which would be an obvious immediate conclusion and thus click bait.
The project is six years in the future!
My intention was to rack up an excellent PR headline for the Club in HK via the territory's leading English-language newspaper on the strength of and in the wake of Shanghai - the third PAFC article in a row following interviews here by Sam Agars with first Matt Richardson and more recently Andrew Hunter.
My intention was to make no PAFC commitments but impress the Home Affairs Bureau of the HK Govt, the consultants KPMG whom KT and Andrew Hunter have already met, and show the HKCA that we are in support of their efforts to have a large-format ground designed into the Sports Park. Why the hell would we not be?

If there is such a ground in HK as of 2022 it gives us greater security of choice as far as suitable China venues go ... and if we remain in first in both Shanghai and Hong Kong, rather than discard Hong Kong where the whole strategy began, then the market is, more than ever, ours.

It should be our Chairman explaining this sort of stuff, not me. But, as I suggested earlier, if it's not his idea it doesn't seem to qualify. This is not the first time I have felt that his real agenda is Koch first Club second.
 
Further to above post, here is Sam Agars' comment on the match in Shanghai:

http://www.scmp.com/sport/other-spo...-aussie-rules-china-stay-how-do-port-adelaide

Business ties ensure Aussie Rules is in China to stay, but how do Port Adelaide make it about more than money?

Game against the Gold Coast provides a superb spectacle, but immense challenges remain as club attempts to make Aussie Rules a sought-after sport

PUBLISHED : Saturday, 20 May, 2017

http://www.scmp.com/sport/other-spo...-aussie-rules-china-stay-how-do-port-adelaide
 
If the Club is scared of offending Mr Gui every time a publicity opportunity is in reach then we no longer have a China Strategy worth pursuing.

Fact: Mr Gui's objective has always been to bring AFL to Shanghai ... not China.

Koch himself has spoken of staging two matches in China each year, including a pre-season game in a different city each time. I don't agree with this at all. It will mean we will be endlessly chasing our tails and will never make a profit. However as this is Koch's personal idea, it's probably the only one he wants to hear.

I have a different plan in mind and it has little to do with the Kai Tak Sports Park.

My intention in setting up the interview with SCMP last Friday was not to broadcast any intention for PAFC to play a match at the future Kai Tak Sports Park - which would be an obvious immediate conclusion and thus click bait.
The project is six years in the future!
My intention was to rack up an excellent PR headline for the Club in HK via the territory's leading English-language newspaper on the strength of and in the wake of Shanghai - the third PAFC article in a row following interviews here by Sam Agars with first Matt Richardson and more recently Andrew Hunter.
My intention was to make no PAFC commitments but impress the Home Affairs Bureau of the HK Govt, the consultants KPMG whom KT and Andrew Hunter have already met, and show the HKCA that we are in support of their efforts to have a large-format ground designed into the Sports Park. Why the hell would we not be?

If there is such a ground in HK as of 2022 it gives us greater security of choice as far as suitable China venues go ... and if we remain in first in both Shanghai and Hong Kong, rather than discard Hong Kong where the whole strategy began, then the market is, more than ever, ours.

It should be our Chairman explaining this sort of stuff, not me. But, as I suggested earlier, if it's not his idea it doesn't seem to qualify. This is not the first time I have felt that his real agenda is Koch first Club second.

I reckon you're spot on in your assessment, as is Geoffa from the Adelaide board. Koch's agenda is about driving business interests from Australia into China and vice versa - he's more passionate about that than he is about PAFC. That's why I reckon he's floating the idea of a pre-season game in a different city each time - it would be pretty easy to tie in trade missions to Tier 2/3 cities around China on the back of such a match and build up business networks that way.

I wouldn't worry about the club discarding Hong Kong, though. Koch was glowing about HK as a great staging point to enter the Chinese market during that seminar, due to the high ex-pat population, and thankfully the PAFC board does not equal David Koch anyway.

P.S The AFL's consultancy partner is Deloitte. That might be a monkey in the wrench of doing anything with KPMG.
 
Koch's agenda is about driving business interests from Australia into China and vice versa - he's more passionate about that than he is about PAFC. That's why I reckon he's floating the idea of a pre-season game in a different city each time - it would be pretty easy to tie in trade missions to Tier 2/3 cities around China on the back of such a match and build up business networks that way.
Thank you Janus you have just provided me with a shaft of critical insight.
 
LR I love reading your updates, but now that you are intimately involved rather than fanboys like the rest of us, is there a chance you are sharing a little too much information at times?
Kind of hope the slight anti-Koch sentiment is not a cause for any rifts/angst.
 
Kind of hope the slight anti-Koch sentiment is not a cause for any rifts/angst.

LR is just looking out for the club first and foremost.
Pushing for results on the field and off it.
Port is in his blood so the grumbling is an effect of a perceived opportunity missed.

I also understand that level-headedness and dashing good looks skip a generation...
 

bringbackbucky

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LR is just looking out for the club first and foremost.
Pushing for results on the field and off it.
Port is in his blood so the grumbling is an effect of a perceived opportunity missed.

I also understand that level-headedness and dashing good looks skip a generation...
I have no doubt his point was valid. Love his work and am eternally grateful for all he has done (and continues to do). Was just more a comment that he is now well an truly on the inside so should be careful about what hits these pages.

Keep up the good work both of you.
 
I have no doubt his point was valid. Love his work and am eternally grateful for all he has done (and continues to do). Was just more a comment that he is now well an truly on the inside so should be careful about what hits these pages.

Keep up the good work both of you.

No harm, no foul.

The work done is entirely on LR.
I am enjoying the journey as a coat tail rider.

Though there are many others on this board doing their bit for the club which often go unnoticed but are equally as important.
 
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LR I love reading your updates, but now that you are intimately involved rather than fanboys like the rest of us, is there a chance you are sharing a little too much information at times?


Providing aid and comfort to the Adelaide Crows board - is that a Court Moderator offence?

;)
 
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I have no doubt his point was valid. Love his work and am eternally grateful for all he has done (and continues to do). Was just more a comment that he is now well an truly on the inside so should be careful about what hits these pages.

Keep up the good work both of you.
I get your point too. Subaru spends a good part of every day lurking here, devouring every titbit from this thread and taking it verbatim to the criers board and the Bay in a massively obsessive manner. Why give that low life the pleasure?
 
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