Again;
It's the AFL's funeral!
Also this as it appered in todays Australian
source:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22687924-5012432,00.html
Titans object to Gold Coast turf war
Dan Koch | November 02, 2007
GOLD COAST TITANS managing director Michael Searle has slammed the AFL's approach to having a team placed on the Gold Coast by 2010, saying it reeked of arrogance and showed little regard for the local community.
Having overseen the Titans' stunning debut season, which saw the new club record the second-best home crowd average and merchandise sales in the NRL, Searle said his club had little to fear from AFL chief executive Andrew Demetriou's announcement on Wednesday that either the Kangaroos or a newly created 17th team would have a permanent home on the Gold Coast within two years.
Already contracted to play seven games at Carrara Stadium over the next two seasons, the Kangaroos have been given just 30 days to agree to a proposal from the AFL to relocate to the tourist strip by 2010.
However, Searle said such an uncompromising, sledgehammer style was unlikely to win over fans on the Gold Coast who he claimed were already cynical about the AFL's motives for having a team in the region.
"What the AFL clearly doesn't understand is the Titans' entrance into the NRL wasn't simply a spur of the moment idea we had one day.
"It was the culmination of seven years of community-driven support to have an NRL team based here," Searle said.
"The people here can see straight through this. They see this as a strategic reaction by the AFL to counter the success of the Titans.
"They saw the Kangaroos playing games here this year as an attempt by the AFL to run interference on our first season and they will treat this latest announcement with the same cynicism."
Searle said it was insulting for the AFL to think it could simply place a team on the Gold Coast and expect fans to follow.
"You have to do much more to win over the Gold Coast market than simply getting a team and slapping a Gold Coast badge on them," Searle, who grew up in the area, said.
"You need to engage the local community otherwise it will simply collapse, as we have seen happen here many times before.
"What the AFL is trying to do reeks of arrogance."
Searle said the arrival of a second AFL team in southeast Queensland would not cost the Titans a single cent in revenue or corporate support but predicted it would cut into the market share of the Brisbane Lions.
Lions coach Leigh Matthews has been an outspoken critic of the AFL's attempts to move a second team into Queensland, adamant the region simply could not financially support a second team.
However, with the AFL having made its position clear, Lions chief executive Michael Bowers said the club was now preparing to meet any invader head-on. "The AFL's decision gives us some clarity and an unequivocal timeline to work within, so now we say 'bring it on'," Bowers said.
"We have until 2010 to shore up our patch and we will be working extremely hard as an organisation to do just that.
"When the new team does arrive we will get straight into it, competing both on and off the field and hopefully we can make life very difficult for them.
"I don't think anyone is under any illusion that it won't be a big challenge.
"But, from our perspective, there are certainly plenty of positives about having another team based here in Queensland.
"First and foremost there will be an extra team here which will help create a local rivalry as well as increase the overall coverage of the game. You will also have more people living and breathing AFL footy and that has a positive flow-on effect."
As I said in TFC.... good to see Searle make a stand against the invaders!
