Perth Glory owner Tony Sage says his losses have now soared past $40 million, and his hopes of cashing in on Daniel Sturridge’s popularity could be thwarted by a potential three-jab policy.
Glory forked out big to snare former Liverpool star Sturridge on a one-year deal, and a pumping crowd of 17,198 attended his A-League Men debut in round one.
Perth have been on the road ever since due to Western Australia’s hard border, and the club was dealt a further blow when the planned February 5 reopening was postponed indefinitely.
Glory are still hopeful of being able to return home in late February and host a glut of matches under a fly-in, fly-out scenario for visiting sides.
But even those plans are now up in the air as the WA government considers imposing a COVID-19 booster vaccine mandate on any visitors to the state.
If that is the case, it would be near impossible for Glory to host games.
One alternative scenario would be a requirement for returning WA-based sides to be triple jabbed but visiting sides only needing to be double jabbed.
“If they make rules like you’ve got to be triple jabbed to get into the state, and if all the other teams aren’t triple jabbed, what do we do?” Sage told AAP.
“We can’t force every other player in the league to get tripled jabbed. Victoria, NSW and Queensland aren’t making their people do it.
“I don’t know the jab status of every player in the league.
“Our guys aren’t even triple jabbed, so are they allowed to come back? Some players might not want to do it.”
Sage became a part-owner of Glory in 2007 and became the outright owner two years later.
He has poured millions of dollars into the club, with the past two COVID-affected seasons proving particularly costly.
Although the Australian Professional Leagues is footing the bill for the club’s hub life over east, the lost revenue is costing Sage dearly.
“At the moment we’ve lost 12 home games at $250,000 a game, plus match-day advertising and merchandise stuff,” Sage said.
“The team might lose $5 million this year all up.
“(I’ve lost) forty million bucks, easy. I love the club. It’s like a fourth child.”
If Glory aren’t able to play a substantial amount of home games this season, Sage won’t come close to recouping the big investment he made in Sturridge.
“The strategy 100 per cent worked. We got 17,000 for that first game,” Sage said.
“We made a lot of money out of that game. We sold out of every shirt that we had.
“Now, the poor guy has been in quarantine for 35 days since he got to Australia.”
Sage said his hopes of finding a new owner were also being thwarted by WA’s closed border, with no one wanting to buy a club which can’t play home games.
The lack of home games has also resulted in a significant number of Glory staff being forced to take annual leave since mid-December.
“We haven’t had to sack anyone or stand down anyone.,” Glory chief executive Tony Pignata told AAP.
“It’s mainly the marketing and events staff at the moment who are working a couple of days a week and using their annual leave for the rest.”
COVID-hit Glory are expected to return to action on Sunday against Central Coast.
