St Kilda is pulling no punches in its new fund-raising campaign and president Andrew Bassat is making no apologies for the stark messaging.
Saints fans are being asked to “join the fight for the future of the club” and it raises the spectre of an uncertain future for the Saints, whose $12 million debt will increase significantly this year due to the adverse affects of COVID-19 on the entire football economy.
“The words are quite deliberately chosen,” Bassat said in an interview published this week by Plus 61J Media.
“Our job is to make sure...that if not all clubs have a chance (to win the premiership) that we’re one that can.”
The campaign is asking St Kilda supporters not just to become members, but to donate further to the club if they have the means.
The Saints entered this season with tremendous optimism, having determined that on-field success would bring crowds back to the game and that the resultant uptick in membership and sponsorship would help the club chip away at its debt.
Brett Ratten was in his first year as the permanent senior coach, Bradley Hill, Douglas Howard, Dan Butler, Zak Jones and Paddy Ryder were recruited from rival clubs while emerging key forward Max King was also unveiled in round one amidst great excitement.
But the best-laid plans of Bassat and the management team have now been curtailed, at least in the short term.
“The timing was terrible and it’s going to be a setback for sure,” he said. “There was optimism coming in to the season; we’d attracted five quality players from other clubs and were on track for a record 50,000 membership and record sponsorship.”
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“So Covid has hit at the worst possible time for our club. The club had a lot of momentum, but now we’ll end the year with significantly more debt than we would have otherwise so we’ve taken a few steps back.”
But he remains confident the Saints will make inroads up the ladder and with their finances once the game starts to return to normal. And he has strongly backed club chief executive Matt Finnis and the management and coaches at the club.
“If you get those right in any organisation success usually follows. If you don’t, success is hard but when I got there the building blocks were in place and we’ve been sharpening that up and looking towards becoming successful,” he said.
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