Wellington Phoenix chairman Rob Morrison says every avenue will be explored with Football Federation Australia in order to ensure Sunday’s Hyundai A-League match against Gold Coast United goes ahead.
Wellington Phoenix chairman Rob Morrison says every avenue will be explored with Football Federation Australia in order to ensure Sunday’s Hyundai A-League match against Gold Coast United goes ahead.
Gold Coast chairman Clive Palmer was stripped of his licence on Wednesday for “material breaches of the Club Participation Agreement”.
Palmer has been involved in an ongoing dispute with the game’s governing body over a range of issues relating to how the game is run in Australia.
He has become embroiled in a war of words with FFA chairman Frank Lowy and FFA chief executive Ben Buckley and the club was judged to have breached their licence by replacing their club sponsor on their shirt with a “Freedom of Speech” message on Saturday against Melbourne Victory.
The matter came to a dramatic conclusion on Wednesday with the termination of Gold Coast’s licence leaving the club’s remaining four games of the season – against Wellington, Newcastle Jets, Perth Glory and Brisbane Roar – in jeopardy.
“I think it would be everyone’s preference for it (the match at Westpac Stadium) to go ahead on Sunday,” Morrison said.
“The FFA are going to be speaking to the players and the Gold Coast about continuing to play out their schedule until the end of the season. We are obviously hopeful that that will be the case.”
Morrison revealed ticket pre-sales indicated a crowd of around 14-15,000 were expected for the penultimate home game of the season as the Phoenix look to cement their position in the top four for the finals series.
“The Phoenix are playing very well at the moment and we’ve got a good chance of a high finish in terms of the play-off positioning. There is quite a bit of momentum building around it and obviously we’d like to see that happen.”
If Sunday’s game is postponed it would leave the Phoenix with a crammed finish to the regular season.
They will play Melbourne Heart and Melbourne Victory in back-to-back away games on March 10 and 16, leaving only a potential midweek slot available prior to their final game of the season at home to Central Coast Mariners on March 25.
“That would be tough because you would be flying back from Melbourne and a midweek game before you play the league leaders. That wouldn’t be a great outcome,” Morrison added.
“What we will do is work with the FFA in terms of trying to ensure the best outcome possible. Our preference would be for the game to go ahead.”
