SEN Afternoons host Andy Maher has grave concerns for the Gold Coast Suns, as he believes the AFL got it wrong by placing a team in the region.
The Suns have lost 13 straight games this season and haven’t finished higher than 12th since their inception seven years ago.
“I wonder how many senior AFL executives sit down on a Saturday night and watch the Gold Coast Suns,” Maher told AFL Nation’s The Sunday Recovery.
“There’s no foundation for this club. This club is an AFL idea. This is a marketing tool.
“This is an arm of the AFL’s expansion plan.
“The AFL’s taken football to this region because of its strategic value.
“It hasn’t taken football to the Gold Coast because there were 500,000 screaming out for AFL representation.
“This is a dollars and cents decision by the AFL.
“There’s no Australian Rules football foundation upon which to build the Gold Coast Suns.
“They’re soulless. No one cares. They are playing in the game of least interest every week.”
But Gold Coast CEO Mark Evans suggests the participation in the region is strong enough to spur the club forward.
“The AFL and its weight up here is impressive and will get stronger,” he told SEN Breakfast.
“If you’re talking about the 15 to 20 to 30-year timeframe, the 265,000 participants in football in Queensland would suggest that the market that needs to sit behind a franchise will work.
“The community that sits behind football is growing at a great rate of knots.”
The last time the Suns won this season was against Carlton in Round 4, so they will be hoping for the same result when they face the Blues on Saturday at Marvel Stadium.