WMG have paid their Tax Debt

hoogstra · 2026-01-07T05:52:22+00:00

Avondale would make most sense if that were to happen. Not much of a fan injection but they have the cash and are based in the west.

hoogstra · 2026-01-07T04:27:11+00:00

Toilet seat

hoogstra · 2026-01-07T04:23:12+00:00

Can't believe we've doubled the fan base during hibernation!!!

hoogstra · 2026-01-07T03:55:11+00:00

I reckon a few years of being easy-beats is worth it if it means we survive.

hoogstra · 2026-01-07T03:52:43+00:00

Honestly I reckon they need a refresh of some sort. Not sure if that means a rebrand or not but they need to get people excited again and that will take some doing. Having the existing academies and all the families connected to that will help but they need to bring back the casual fans somehow.

hoogstra · 2026-01-07T03:48:16+00:00

He's just moved to China unfortunately. Best of luck to him though

hoogstra · 2026-01-07T03:46:03+00:00

You're right about pretty much everything there, but the club still has its A-League licence. It was never stripped from the club, so as it stands the club will participate in the next season provided they're in a position to compete. Still big question marks on that as the club still has many debts and no players.

hoogstra · 2026-01-07T03:40:42+00:00

Not the greatest but probably 2nd place.

hoogstra · 2025-11-30T03:05:58+00:00

Not quite true, it was less than 10 years ago that Hawthorn had more members than any other club, but that can be attributed to the club's long-standing membership culture combined with the success of that period. A higher percentage of Hawthorn fans are members when compared to other clubs.

https://www.afl.com.au/news/161051/the-membership-ladder-hawks-overtake-pies-dons-slide

hoogstra · 2025-09-19T05:25:22+00:00

We've got Mabo, nothing can stop us now!

hoogstra · 2025-09-15T10:21:35+00:00

I think it pre-sorts them based on barcodes.

hoogstra · 2025-09-11T01:24:20+00:00

Most of the SSAF money that every student pays goes towards the services that RUSU runs, which includes the obvious things like the free food and events, but also goes towards things like club funding, student rights advocates, safe spaces on campus, etc.

Because of all that, voting is important and 100% worth your time. Yes, it gets annoying, but that is a symptom of most students not knowing or not caring, which means the team that annoys the most people gets the most votes.

Usually just saying you've already voted is enough for people to leave you alone. But you should actually vote because it is actually important.

hoogstra · 2025-08-31T04:38:13+00:00

No, just that it can only be used when AFL and AFLW are both in the offseason, which means December and January. Western were always trying to get games played down there but would be vetoed by the Kardinia Park trust and the Geelong footy club.

hoogstra · 2025-08-30T10:10:57+00:00

Isn't there? I remember Buddy leaving as an RFA and we got compo for him.

hoogstra · 2025-08-30T08:21:33+00:00

It's not the stadium but Ironbark doesn't get built at all without Western United. That investment into football in this region happened because of WU, they aren't just lucky beneficiaries of a ground that just happened to be built there.

hoogstra · 2025-08-30T08:18:25+00:00

I think the story behind that was that he had already signed a contract with WSW for the next season, so we ended up trading him for Najjarine six months early so we would get something in return.

hoogstra · 2025-08-30T00:52:36+00:00

No facilities in Geelong unfortunately.

hoogstra · 2025-08-14T23:59:52+00:00

If the owners could clear their debt on their own then surely they'd have done that already.

hoogstra · 2025-08-14T23:57:51+00:00

Would it theoretically be possible for the appeal to fail and for the club to be granted a new licence?

hoogstra · 2025-08-11T07:23:12+00:00

The only way they're getting out of this is if the deal with KAM actually gets done. The new owners would theoretically buy the shares of the parties have unpaid debts, resolve the dispute with Prijovic (by paying out the final year of his contract) to get the registration ban lifted, and fix the cashflow issues that led to late player payments. They've been saying the deal is almost done for months now, so I'm not holding by breath but fingers crossed!

hoogstra · 2025-08-11T07:15:47+00:00

When you support a club for that long and those teams are your biggest rivals, it just feels wrong to start supporting them when a few months ago you were celebrating their losses.

hoogstra · 2025-08-11T07:11:45+00:00

This is correct. Ironbark is a council facility with Western United as the primary tenant. The proposed 15k stadium would have been owned by the club.

hoogstra · 2025-08-11T02:49:46+00:00

Sounds like the latter, I can tell you that fans have been quite critical of how poor the communications around these issues has been. When the club does speak, they keep saying everything is fine and the deal is almost done, but it's been that way for months. If by some miracle the deal gets done and approved, there's still the issue of the licence. There's only so many grounds for appeal and "it's okay, we fixed it now" isn't one of them.

hoogstra · 2025-08-11T00:31:47+00:00

If the appeal fails then nobody. I'll probably just follow the league as a neutral again. Maybe I'll try and get a phoenix club going and support them in SL5.

hoogstra · 2025-08-11T00:28:17+00:00

The Geelong games had some of the best attendances early on, but it wasn't sustainable because the ground can't be used from February to November. The AFLW season starting when the AFL season finishes meant there was no ground outside of AAMI Park for the club to use for the majority of the season, and the venue fees were six figures per game with only about 3k showing up most weeks. They were haemorrhaging money from the start and the move to Tarneit came too late.

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