Ethical Les getting some free publicity today


http://www.theaustralian.com.au/sport/football/australias-world-cup-2022-bid-team-concealed-fedor-radmann-involvement-report-finds/news-story/b066bd49059d3bac1967ddc49488eeda

Mr Garcia also revealed that Australian soccer identity Les Murray, who was on FIFA's ethics committee, leaked confidential information to Mr Hargitay, who then leaked it to Mr Lowy.
 
"On January 7, 2009, FIFA ethics committee member Les Murray forwarded Mr Hargitay an email he had sent to the chair of the ethics committee, Sebastian Coe, asking to discuss potentially investigating certain conduct by England's bid team. Mr Hargitay then forwarded the email to Australia 2022 Chairman Frank Lowy along with the message: 'Boom. Here we go' "

Winner of Official 442 Comment of the day Award -  10th April 2017

- See more at: http://www.ccmariners.com.au/article/mariners-w-league-introduction-delayed/14b99fy1m64e91m3w9crwsm9n8#sthash.xFhesvhu.dpuf

Colour picked in photoshop, can confirm its dark blue.

Hope Les and Foz are keeping good paperwork

This bid smells very similar to the current schmozzle.............

4-Corners report
http://iview.abc.net.au/programs/four-corners/NC1704H017S00

ABC article

The Labor Party, Chinese property developer Huang Xiangmo, and the seat in the NSW parliament

Updated yesterday at 8:33pm

When Chinese President Xi Jinping came to power at the beginning of November 2012, one of the first things he did was announce a crackdown on corruption.

It was a decision which rippled all the way to the NSW parliament in Macquarie Street.

Among those to be investigated was a political patron of the southern Chinese property developer Huang Xiangmo.

Although Mr Huang was never investigated himself, or even implicated in the case, it created enough uncertainty that he decided to migrate to Australia.

Once he arrived, he set about creating a similar network of political influence through money.

"Every donor expects a pound of flesh in return for their contribution, but in China it's a little more than that," China expert Professor John Fitzgerald told 7.30.

"China's a networked society with very low levels of public trust. Trust is built through relationships and relationships are founded on gifts and donations and favours."

Half a million dollars donation in one day

At the same time as Huang Xiangmo was moving to Australia, one of NSW Labor's factional heavyweights, Eric Roozendaal, was being investigated by the state's corruption watchdog, and he was suspended by the party.

Ultimately the ICAC made no findings against Mr Roozendaal, the Upper House member of parliament and former NSW general secretary.

On 19 November, Huang Xiangmo made his first Australian political donation: $150,000 to NSW Labor.

On the same day, two of his business mates donated a further $350,000 between them — all up, half a million dollars in one day.

Eric Roozendaal out, Ernest Wong in

In May 2013 Eric Roozendaal announced he was leaving politics for good.

Unbeknownst to the public, Mr Roozendaal had already secured a job at Huang Xiangmo's company, Yuhu.

Three weeks later a friend of Mr Huang's, Ernest Wong, was catapulted into Mr Roozendaal's Upper House seat.

People within Labor headquarters at the time say it was Sam Dastyari who was the architect of Wong's promotion.

"Where else in Australia would it be possible for a businessman to make significant contributions to a political party and then appoint to his own business somebody invited by his own party to step down?" John Fitzgerald said.

"And fortuitously a colleague or ally, political ally of the businessman finds himself in the seat vacated by the member of parliament who's joined the businessman's firm?"

"I'm sure no laws have been broken but questions need to be asked."

Dastyari's Chinese connections exposed

Since 2012, Huang Xiangmo has donated almost $3 million to both sides of Australian politics.

For Sam Dastyari, the Huang connection would eventually come back to haunt him.

After being elected as a Federal senator in 2013, it was revealed last year that Huang paid a legal bill of thousands of dollars for Senator Dastyari. It also became known that Senator Dastyari allowed another Chinese businessman to pay a travel bill.

Senator Dastyari was forced to resign his position on the opposition front bench.

"The Chinese government tries to exercise influence in Australia through Chinese community organisations," John Fitzgerald explained.

"And a number of organisations with which Mr Huang is associated are, shall we say, fronts for the Chinese government.

"They might be called non-profit organisations or NGOs, but they're set up at the initiative of the communist party and they're funded by business people like Mr Huang."

Neither Sam Dastyari nor Eric Roozendaal responded to 7.30's questions, although Senator Dastyari told the ABC this week that he'd severed all ties with Huang.

Ernest Wong said he could not recall the 2012 donations and rejected suggestions his appointment to the upper house was connected to his relationship with Huang.

Green? Im freaking out

I noticed that the other day. It looks like a dark green to me.

Change profile picture



Can't tell if black or dark blue

Mariners forced to wait for approval on W-League team

Greg O'Rourke, the head of the A-League and W-League, said the FFA weren't in a position to make a call until further talks have been held regarding broadcast rights for the W-League and the economics around the free-to-air component of the television coverage.


http://theworldgame.sbs.com.au/article/2017/05/26/mariners-forced-wait-approval-w-league-team

Even I as a non AFL person knows we have not played 9 home games this season at Spotless.
You need to look at home games.

But that average is for all 9 home and away games, including 44k which turned out for the opening game against Adelaide in Adelaide (and that's the bare minimum that will turn up for any game at AO).

The Giants home average is closer to 10,700, helped along by 14k which turned out at Manuka to see them play the reigning premiers.

GWS' home attendance at Spotless has been a touch disappointing, with 10,680 against Richmond last week, and 11,360 against Collingwood the week before (two very high drawing teams).

IN fact, given GWS are currently top four material, I would describe their attendances as quite stagnant.,

Here I checked before I posted:
http://www.footywire.com/afl/footy/ta-greater-western-sydney-giants

s

I think you need to check what they get in Sydney, not in Melbourne, it's no way near the 18K you talking about & it's well known they are counting feet too not people at spotless for GWS.
Swans is not a new team & is Sydney's AFL team.

I'm sorry but whether they are Victorian expats or not they are still attending the game. The Giants get 18,000, something everybody was creaming themselves over when the Wanderers were getting those numbers and the Sydney Swans have had a crowd average of 30,000 for the past six years more than Victory have ever pulled. I don't want to cheer lead for the AFL but sometimes we need a dose of realism.

That may be expected, even for the biggest competition in this country the newest teams (GWS & GCS) are only pulling about 4K of local fans.

Funny you mention that in a interview on pacific radio with Nixs head honcho David Dome, They asked what plans Nixs had for the future and he responded by saying "There not looking beyond 2020".  Makes you wonder what's up with that.

Phoenix will be long gone

Gallop not even looking at 2018-19 anymore

That's fair enough, I didn't say there was anything wrong with getting 4k, I said we simply have to accept that that would happen frequently.  Once we go to P&R, it will be even more frequent, it's not a bad thing, we just have to accept that would be the case.

I said on another thread that the Eerstedivisie is full of tiny clubs from small towns with ground capacities of 5k or less.  Granted, these sorts of clubs rarely get near promotion to the Eredivisie, but occasionally, one slips through!

As an example, take Helmond Sport, from Helmond, just down the road from Eindhoven (you can walk it in about 45 minutes).  Helmond has a population of 89,000 and the ground capacity of Helmond Sport is currently 4,100, fairly typical of the bottom half of the Eerste divisie.

They actually won promotion to the Eredivisie once, back around the mid 80s, lasted two seasons, which was probably one longer than I expected them to last at the time.

Once we are open to promotion and relegation, we have to expect that tiny clubs from tiny towns will occasionally win promotion to the A-League, and they too might have  a ground capacity of circa 4,000.

I don't say it as a bad thing, I say it as the reality - I think many on this board might have trouble accepting that reality.

and I'd much rather that club be a small Australian based club, growing the game in parts of Australia, giving young Australian footballers a pathway.

GCU almost won it, do you think that would have made a difference ?

4K at games is more then some Super rugby games get. So maybe 4k is kinda ok as its better then most ARU crowds.

As we expand to 12 or even 14 teams, I think we will have to accept that there will be newish clubs regularly getting 4k attendances.

You guys have it all wrong.

4K is perfect for the FFA.
A mediocre Nix is perfect for the FFA.

What happens of the Nix are actually premiers or champions? THATS the worst case scenario.

I mean, how does the FFA axe them then?

4K crowds and I'm pulling the pin on the Nixs. 

Their best bet is to get P&R introduced ASAP

The reward for that campaign was complacency. We now know what it gets us. -25% crowds and jingoistic parochial bullshit. But it has now sunk in that the only people who want the Phoenix are people in Australia and a Sydney HAL club that doesn't want competition. The next save the nix campaign comes from the Kiwis I'm afraid, and they have 3 years to stop a 25% decline, then somehow reverse it, then somewhere in there have to actually grow beyond where they were in 2015. Fat chance.

4k crowds in 2017/18 then the pin gets pulled.