Gold Coast titans rl club
I can’t imagine the afl ever sacrificing all the benefits to cost control and strategic flexibility that comes with no private club ownership for the very limited and uncertain benefits of private ownership of an afl club
They might leverage it for Aflx (and I’m not a fan of that approach even) but they’ve clearly rejected the possibility of privately funded afl clubs otherwise would have surely taken that approach for the expansion if they were ever going to.
My position was what I understood it to be not what I thought it should be. Private ownership doesn't preclude injecting funds but it does require faith in the ownership to give them control of the funds.
Certainly the Edelsten experiment was a disaster.
I do think the relationship between our board and the AFL is misunderstood though, but I'm not sure of other clubs.
Tony Shepherd has much more influence in NSW than the AFL. If you want evidence look to reports he was writing press releases for the NSW Minister for Sport about the Alliance Stadium rebuild. A proposal that was rejected rationally by Baird then adopted by a Government that could easily lose an election because of it, after he left. That was in his role on the board of the SCG trust but it shows his influence.
The notion he could be leaned on by Gillon doesn't make a lot of sense. Much more sensible is the notion the AFL would rely on him for influence in NSW.