Fan betrayal as blockbuster canned
BOOM club Parramatta's bold bid to switch its round-one blockbuster with St George Illawarra to ANZ Stadium has been torpedoed by the club's Stadium Trust. And it has robbed 30,000 fans the chance to attend the game, many of whom have flooded online forums to vent their outrage.
Eels CEO Paul Osborne wanted to switch the clash from Parramatta Stadium in a bid to prevent thousands of fans being locked out of the season opener. The decision has upset club legend Ray Price who said: "That oval was built because of the Eels - not anything else," he said. "No one else hires [Parramatta Stadium].
"What happens if we say, 'Hey we will take all our games to ANZ Stadium'. It frustrates me."
The switch had the support of NRL boss David Gallop, but Osborne was forced to concede his club had failed to reach an agreement with Parramatta Stadium officials. "The board has listened to our members and fans and decided to play our first match of the NRL season at Parramatta Stadium," Osborne said.
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"The cost was too great with the club unable to break its 10-match-a-year agreement with the Parramatta Stadium Trust."
Osborne clearly wasn't listening to fans from leagueunlimited.com, who scolded the decision.
"20,000 capacity just doesn't cut it in this day and age. I can see why some people would be upset about Ossie moving the game but I just thought it was great a initiative to earn some money for Parra and maybe even win over a few new fans," Hineyrulz wrote on the website. "So [the Stadium Trust] get most of their revenue from us [the fans] but they find a way to screw the club ... and 20,000 people from watching the game?"
Moving the match would have cost the Eels $200,000 in compensation and stadium hire.
But fan Fisheel argued: "I assume costing us $200k to move the match doesn't factor in how much we'd have made from the game?
"Osborne was talking up the move [big time] from a good of the game perspective rather than a financial one, unless the board stepped in and said no?"
Osborne was critical of the inflexibility of the Eels' arrangement with the Stadium Trust.
"Clearly the current arrangement with Parramatta Stadium is onerous and it is difficult to make decisions like this that could benefit the club and its fans," he said.
Gallop said it was not up to the NRL to assist in compensation.
"The clubs need to have flexibility in their hiring arrangements and most do have flexible arrangements these days," Gallop said.
With a capacity of just 21,000 at Parramatta Stadium, the Eels are certain to be forced to turn back thousands of fans for a match that would have drawn up to 50,000, and will cost the NRL a chance to break its 185,051 record for opening-round attendance set in 2007.
