Searle defiant as bidders circle
by: Margie McDonald
From: The Australian
April 02, 2012 12:00AM
GOLD Coast boss Michael Searle is not giving up the club without a fight and has dismissed talk about who might take over the Titans to keep a rugby league club in the vital southern Queensland-northern NSW corridor.
After local businessman Bill Rae and former Melbourne Storm five-eighth Scott Hill identified themselves last week as the spokesmen for two separate consortiums, no mention had been made about whether Searle would play a role in either venture.
But a defiant Searle told The Australian he was not prepared to hand over the club he fought for nine years to create before it entered the NRL in 2007.
"I don't even know who the consortiums are. I haven't heard from them," Searle said. "They are obviously talking to the NRL assuming they are going to get control of the licence. No one approached us and we hold the licence."
Searle owns 80 per cent of the Titans and waged a virtual one-man campaign to bring an NRL side back to the Gold Coast. Four previous ventures had failed.
However, his vision of a Titans empire is crumbling.
Spiralling bank debt, falling property prices and fights with contractors have combined to strangle the Gold Coast Titans (Property) Pty Ltd, which is believed to be more than $25 million in the red.
The Federal court is due to sit on April 20 in Brisbane to begin the process of winding the company up because an earlier hearing found it prima facie insolvent. The Australian Rugby League Commission has had independent auditors sift through the myriad deals and companies that make up the Titans.
It found the football club and the property arm were intertwined.
Searle has asserted that the two were separate identities.
But last night Searle said he and his team of club administrators were still working through solutions. And he issued a pledge that he would be digging in his heels.
"I'm not prepared to hand over the club. We've said for a while that the solution for us was to dispose of the building and that's what I'm working towards," Searle said. "I'm confident we'll come up with a sale at some stage in the future."
Asked if a sale would keep the wolves from the door or at least keep the NRL from stripping him of the licence, he said: "The (football) club is a profitable and sustainable model. It's not a liquidity issue, it's a building issue.
"Once we solve the building issue we still continue talking to the NRL about possible funding."
Searle was at Skilled Park yesterday to watch the Titans fall courageously to Canterbury 30-20 -- their fourth loss in a row.
Titans captain Scott Prince later said the headlines and speculation about the future of the club had an affect on the players. "It's a distraction, don't get me wrong," Prince said. "But at the end of the day we've been reassured as players and staff that everything is fine. We get paid to play footy and that's our profession. We do it week in, week out."
Hill was interviewed before kick-off on ABC Radio and guaranteed that if his consortium, which includes former Titans football manager Scott Sattler and dual international Mat Rogers, took over it could keep the playing roster together. He made no mention of future players signings such as Dave Taylor, the Souths forward who has signed for four years from next season.
Hill said he was looking to meet commission chief executive David Gallop in the next week or two.
