EXCLUSIVE: THE State Government has saved the Western Bulldogs from imminent financial disaster(HUN)

[Johnno_6]

Re: EXCLUSIVE: THE State Government has saved the Western Bulldogs from imminent financial disaster(

And the Hawks get their 'Hawthorn Hilton' in the Western Heartland.
The rich clubs get richer and the poor get poorer.
Shame Maribyrnong Council Shame.

Sorry, don't know how to post the URL properly but its from The Age today.



Hawks hit jackpot with gaming licence

THE Hawthorn Football Club's climb up the AFL ladder has again been emphatically matched by the club's off-field success with the awarding of a multimillion-dollar gaming-machine licence at Caroline Springs.

Only hours before last Friday night's anticipated clash with Geelong, the Victorian Commission for Gambling Regulation granted the Hawks a licence for 80 poker machines at the soon-to-be-built West Waters development — the only hotel in Caroline Springs.

The gaming licence is believed to be the biggest awarded in Victoria in seven years and is expected to add more than $1 million to the Hawks' annual profit.

Hawthorn, which 12 years ago was virtually broke and resisted a merger with Melbourne, has continued its quest to successfully position itself as an AFL financial powerhouse, enabling its on-field operation to plan its long-term climb into premiership contention.

President Jeff Kennett said last night the Caroline Springs deal, the result of an 18-month campaign by the club and a joint venture with Tattersalls and private investment group Prizac, further underlined Hawthorn's ambition to reap rewards outside traditional football revenue.

"We are trying to look outside the square to secure our long-term future," Kennett said. "We are going through a period of good financial stability and we are always looking for more ways to ensure our long-term success."

Should Hawthorn reach the 2008 grand final, its end-of-year profit could exceed a staggering $4 million. Last year's $3.6 million result was the largest yet by a Victorian club.

The club's profitable major sponsorship deal with the Tasmanian Government and its successful ground agreement with Aurora Stadium is in place until the end of 2011. By contrast, four Victorian clubs — Melbourne, North Melbourne, Richmond and the Western Bulldogs — are all in the final year of major sponsorship agreements, with only the Kangaroos hopeful of reaching another one-year deal with Mazda and Vodafone.

Even the wealthy and most strongly supported club, Collingwood, is reportedly preparing for a seven-figure loss should it write down a multimillion-dollar loss from its hotel venture.

Acting Hawthorn chief executive Terry Dillon paid tribute last night to the club's business committee, headed by Geoff Harris. He said the Caroline Springs deal had come about because of strong support from the local community and Melton Council.

Situated on the Delfin Estate, Dillon said the hotel included 56-room accommodation and two levels of car parking, of which the Hawks would be the tenant.

"It's been a long process but we are consistently working to diversify our revenue into non-traditional football areas. We would like to think this will be a substantial investment for the club," Dillon said.

Hawthorn is also on the verge of striking a deal with the Monash Council, developer Mirvac and Safeway to redirect rainwater from the roof of the Safeway storage plant alongside the club's Waverley Park headquarters to ensure the turf on its training ground remains drought-proof.

The Hawks will invest several hundred thousand dollars to divert water from the 70,000 square-metre catchment above the Safeway building into a water tank alongside Waverley and into a lake adjoining the ground.

Dillon said the club had been working on the agreement, which is expected to be approved by the Department of Sustainability and Environment later this year. Hawthorn will also develop a plan to distribute water to other sporting facilities in the Waverley community.

The AFL's increasing concern at lack of profitability from stadium revenues, particularly at Telstra Dome and the MCG, is expected to dominate discussion at the two-day conference of club chiefs to start at Yuroke, outside Melbourne, today.

Chief executive Andrew Demetriou will head the talks, which will be addressed by Gold Coast boss John Witheriff and AFL NSW chief executive Dale Holmes.

A series of hypotheticals examining the threat from other codes and sports, along with debate regarding the extra financial assistance given to the poorer clubs, is also on the agenda."

I hope the Bulldogs challenge the Maribyrnong City Council's refusal to allow the "Bulldogs Hilton" to be built at Edgewater, through the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal(VCAT).

 

[SurftheWorld]

Re: EXCLUSIVE: THE State Government has saved the Western Bulldogs from imminent financial disaster(

WDogs, what are these so called community facilities that you were promised as part of the redevelopment?????

It makes me absolutely laugh my butt off at how unprofessional this council is, especially Janet who thinks that holding a rally about a decision that the state govt has made with thorough understanding on the situation, but still finds the need to publically attempt to ridicule the 1 number thing people associate within the west being the bulldogs. By asking for people to rally against this decision wearing their footy colors has now just taken the argument out of the board rooms and now into an ugly PR competion as well as to try initiate in-fighting within the club, when we all know the bulldogs have banded together to get over many hurdles in the past so this will be no different.

This rally or whatever the council want to call it, Janet, is just a stunt that will either go one of two ways... humiliate you and your council with a more than poor show of support from local residents (Let’s hope you get more than the 13 residents located in the area for your sake) further outlining how out of touch you are with your direction and vision for this project, or on the other hand you could succeed in getting more than your "Save the pool group" (what a hypocrisy emailing to another group fighting for a separate issue.... and against council mind you) which will most likely be made up of miss-informed people who you have managed to brainwash into thinking the Western Bulldogs project was something other than what it will be, headquarters for the WB, offices for affiliated football associations, not-for profit children’s hub and specialist VUT campus allowing access to elite sportspeople.

 

[Wdogs08]

Re: EXCLUSIVE: THE State Government has saved the Western Bulldogs from imminent financial disaster(

WDogs, what are these so called community facilities that you were promised as part of the redevelopment?????

It makes me absolutely laugh my butt off at how unprofessional this council is, especially Janet who thinks that holding a rally about a decision that the state govt has made with thorough understanding on the situation, but still finds the need to publically attempt to ridicule the 1 number thing people associate within the west being the bulldogs. By asking for people to rally against this decision wearing their footy colors has now just taken the argument out of the board rooms and now into an ugly PR competion as well as to try initiate in-fighting within the club, when we all know the bulldogs have banded together to get over many hurdles in the past so this will be no different.

This rally or whatever the council want to call it, Janet, is just a stunt that will either go one of two ways... humiliate you and your council with a more than poor show of support from local residents (Let’s hope you get more than the 13 residents located in the area for your sake) further outlining how out of touch you are with your direction and vision for this project, or on the other hand you could succeed in getting more than your "Save the pool group" (what a hypocrisy emailing to another group fighting for a separate issue.... and against council mind you) which will most likely be made up of miss-informed people who you have managed to brainwash into thinking the Western Bulldogs project was something other than what it will be, headquarters for the WB, offices for affiliated football associations, not-for profit children’s hub and specialist VUT campus allowing access to elite sportspeople.

I just want to point out again that I am not a fan of the council at all. I have had many run ins with them on numerous occassions and do not find them professional in the slightest. I was just pointing out that the correct process was not adhered to by the Bulldogs which is why it got to this point.

As for the community facilities that were to be made availble through the process, orginally the gym was to be available for the public, there was to be a pool, the child care facilities (whihc havent started - do we know a commencement date on this), and community sporting facilities such as basketball and netball courts.

 

[SurftheWorld]

Re: EXCLUSIVE: THE State Government has saved the Western Bulldogs from imminent financial disaster(

I just want to point out again that I am not a fan of the council at all. I have had many run ins with them on numerous occassions and do not find them professional in the slightest. I was just pointing out that the correct process was not adhered to by the Bulldogs which is why it got to this point.

As for the community facilities that were to be made available through the process, originally the gym was to be available for the public, there was to be a pool, the child care facilities (which haven’t started - do we know a commencement date on this), and community sporting facilities such as basketball and netball courts.

The bulldogs management did everything above board, as noted earlier, Janet is trying to justify to the public why they made such a mess of things by trying to blame the WB for late submissions etc.. It’s a crock. Your forgetting that the state govt intervened, the council knew the position the dogs were in where builders needed to be paid, interest on outstanding accounts was climbing, commitments to possible future tenants who themselves also had timelines to meet so why was it that these delays occurred. Yes there were changes to plans, though the design of the buildings have never changed from what was originally submitted 2 1/2 years ago. It’s a no brainer.

On the community commitments:
Gym was never available as an open gym, available yes to those elite Western suburbs athletes who would be using state of the art Elite Learning centre for sports management, don’t know where you got that one from. There was never a community pool, it’s always been a plunge pool for hot/icy cold water and again for all the elite sports people. The children’s hub was not allowed to start as its stage 2 and was being held back by the council.... it can happily go ahead now. And the basketball and netball courts were always in the 3rd stage so like stage 2 it has been held up by council but not is closer to coming to action. What you see now is stage 1!!

Cheers

Wdogs08, will you be attending this community meeting on friday to show your disatisfaction at how the WB board managed the redevlopment?

 

[Wdogs08]

Re: EXCLUSIVE: THE State Government has saved the Western Bulldogs from imminent financial disaster(

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The bulldogs management did everything above board, as noted earlier, Janet is trying to justify to the public why they made such a mess of things by trying to blame the WB for late submissions etc.. It’s a crock. Your forgetting that the state govt intervened, the council knew the position the dogs were in where builders needed to be paid, interest on outstanding accounts was climbing, commitments to possible future tenants who themselves also had timelines to meet so why was it that these delays occurred. Yes there were changes to plans, though the design of the buildings have never changed from what was originally submitted 2 1/2 years ago. It’s a no brainer.

On the community commitments:
Gym was never available as an open gym, available yes to those elite Western suburbs athletes who would be using state of the art Elite Learning centre for sports management, don’t know where you got that one from. There was never a community pool, it’s always been a plunge pool for hot/icy cold water and again for all the elite sports people. The children’s hub was not allowed to start as its stage 2 and was being held back by the council.... it can happily go ahead now. And the basketball and netball courts were always in the 3rd stage so like stage 2 it has been held up by council but not is closer to coming to action. What you see now is stage 1!!

Cheers

Wdogs08, will you be attending this community meeting on friday to show your disatisfaction at how the WB board managed the redevlopment?

You have a lot of detailed insider information, youre not from within the club by any chance?
I will be attending the meeting on Friday as I have attended all the community consultation meetings, but not to show my support of the council or dissatisfaction at the club, rather to gain a proper understanding of what is happenign going forward to ensure the community has access to facilities in this so called community centre that seems to now be only for elite athletes (as youve outlined above).

 

[Prince Imperial]

Re: EXCLUSIVE: THE State Government has saved the Western Bulldogs from imminent financial disaster(

I hope the Bulldogs challenge the Maribyrnong City Council's refusal to allow the "Bulldogs Hilton" to be built at Edgewater, through the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal(VCAT).

The developers (Prizac) have. They are the same developers behind this Hawthorn development. There are always different factors, but interesting to see that the Mulgrave Hawks had the "strong support" of the Melton Council. on a Delfin estate.

 

[Prince Imperial]

Re: EXCLUSIVE: THE State Government has saved the Western Bulldogs from imminent financial disaster(

As for the community facilities that were to be made availble through the process, orginally the gym was to be available for the public, there was to be a pool, the child care facilities (whihc havent started - do we know a commencement date on this), and community sporting facilities such as basketball and netball courts.

There was never any promise from the club for a community pool or gym. The club has not even built a smaller private pool for its own players. At the Council meeting, you might like to ask the Councillors when are they going to provide a community pool for Footscray?

The last stage of the development is for an indoor sports hall. I am not aware whether the club has raised sufficient funding for this. On a serious note, you might like to ask the Councillors about this and if the club does not, whether they are prepared to provide funding for this?