A Timely Reminder That The Welly Nix Still Don’t Have A New Manager
Now that the fog has lifted somewhat, it’s clear enough that we will at least have one more Wellington Phoenix season to get excited about. And you never know what might happen with one fluke season. Their status beyond the final two years of their licence is as bleak as ever but be grateful for small blessings because they no longer appear to be on the immediate auction block.
Chairman Rob Morrison met with a selection of Yellow Feverites a couple weeks ago to assure them of all that, although the club didn’t bother yapping with any mainstream media on account of their Fake News policy. Even then, the crisis meeting was two weeks too late. Which is silly because if you deprive your target audience of the official word then it’s only you who looks shady. There’s a whole lot of fan fatigue right now because of the psychological torture of the Aussie media’s back and forth going relatively unchallenged for as long as it did. Good luck hitting those metrics, bro.
And let’s be honest, they would definitely have sold the club if the right price had come along. Any A-League ownership would be stupid not to entertain those offers, particularly one working with a ticking time bomb on their licence. Morrison appears to have admitted as much in his crisis korero. Clarity, mate. That’s all we ever asked for. Fans understand the situation the Welnix have been placed in by the FFA and there’s sympathy there as long as we’re not treated like naïve children.
But the club is not for sale. That’s the important thing. Of course… this information isn’t so useful after the FFA already blocked that ridiculously dumb merger suggestion with South-West Sydney. You know the one where they were gonna split their home games, wearing different home jerseys for each city? Yeah, that one.
The FFA blocked it on the basis of ‘maintaining the integrity of its current expansion process’, presumably because why would they want people sneaking in the side entrance of the nightclub when they’re taking door charges at the front?
There have been conflicting reports about the nature of that proposed ownership transfer, chances are it would have led to the Phoenix being phased out of the merger over a few years and eventually ceasing to exist. Earlier this week we passed the deadline date for Expression of Interest submissions regarding A-League expansion, with 15 potential franchises officially in the running now. That’s 15 bids from all over Australia and only two will get picked as expansion teams for the 2019-20 season, which is poised to be the Nix’s final one unless: #METRICS.
The fact that the Nix’s expiring licence and the A-League expansion don’t line up is a little odd, to be honest. You’d have thought that just made sense given the unlikeliness of that licence getting renewed. Typical FFA. The winners of the expansion bids will be announced in October and clearly the FFA don’t want anyone throwing cash at the Welly Nix and shortcutting the process which is why we can be pretty confident that there will be no sale ratified in the near future. Another year of the Phoenix… yay!
Except that now we get to shift the focus to the fact that these bloody people still haven’t hired a new manager for the club. It’s only been three months, sort it out already. Over in England where managers grow on trees, Sunderland have just been relegated in two straight seasons, imagine the financial disaster of that, yet they still got to hand-pick their next boss from a shortlist so idiosyncratic that flippin’ Anthony Hudson was on it. Meanwhile three months into the Nix’s search for a new gaffer and there are literally no relevant candidates unless you believe that they’re into a bit of Des Buckingham… but wouldn’t that have been done by now? Like, Dessie just flew to India with the All Whites for the next two weeks.
It seems to be slim pickings in terms of local candidates and the Aussies haven’t been much help either or else you’d figure we wouldn’t still be having this conversation. And if you’re a European based manager who gets an email from unpaidintern@wellingtonphoenix.co.nz then you’re probably trusting old mate google to sort you out there and what’s gonna come up if you search ‘Wellington Phoenix’? Not a whole lot to entice you into packing up your life and moving halfway around the world.
The club have assured is that they’re “working very hard to finalise the appointment of our new Head Coach” but then they also told us that they never met with that Aussie expansion side before David Gallop stepped up and pissed all over their soft attempt at controlling the news cycle. Obviously there’s a lot on their plate right now but the longer they go without a manager, the harder it’s going to be to make up for lost time later on.
At least they’ve managed to re-sign both Andy Durante and Liberato Cacace for next season. The club captain and the teenaged prodigy, basically the two simplest players in the whole squad to re-sign but they didn’t cock it up so pats on the back for efficiency. And also for offering up a handful of positivity amidst all the rest of it. Those desperately needed outside signings might have to wait until there’s a manager sorted though, which might have to wait until… how long does it take to get a Pro-Licence badge?
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