Unscambling the Egg .. Balmain push to end West Tigers joint venture with Western Suburbbs

[THE RED ROOSTER]

‘It hasn’t worked’: Balmain weighs up bombshell Wests Tigers split as joint venture pushed to brink

[Farmduck]

Quote

Balmain, one half of the Wests Tigers joint venture, is aiming to remove itself from the fold in a bold bid to become a stand alone NRL club.

Yes, please. And take all the remnants of Balmain with you, like Benji and Robbie Farah and the Sironens and Benny Elias and just promise us one thing: you'll never, ever, ever come back.

"... become a standalone NRL club." @#$#@!! You haven't even been able to maintain a club in the Sydney #### Shield! Even North Sydney has continued to exist onfield as an actual footy team all these years.

This story is what happens when club officials do too much coke in front of RL journos.

[Graham]

Am I wrong in thinking Western Suburbs paid off Balmain's debt(s) when they merged?

[Farmduck]

7 hours ago, Graham said:

Am I wrong in thinking Western Suburbs paid off Balmain's debt(s) when they merged?

Back at the original merger Balmain had money but Magpies didn't. Magpies had big junior leagues but Balmain didn't. Things turned around when some famous "club legends" on the board decided to sell the Balmain Leagues Club to developers back around 2009. That cut off Balmain's cash flow and the site has been sitting empty for 15 years. Well, the site isn't even empty yet. They still haven't started demolition on the building.

It's been an endless run of amended development proposals and changes in developers ever since. To me, the decision to go with a developer who had connections to some club legend was the first big mistake. Balmain, and Wests Tigers, have had one of OZ's top 5 richest men, Harry Triguboff, as their main supporter since the 1970s. Harry's firm, Meriton, is one of the biggest property developers in OZ but they decided not to use Meriton.

Balmain ran out of money and started mortgaging off the only thing they had left, their share in Wests Tigers, down to the point where they only have about 10% now. Meanwhile the other clubs, Wests Magpies Ashfield, Wests Magpies Campbelltown and Wests Tigers Flemington Markets, have all been very financially successful and have been able to fund buying up more of the joint venture.

Meanwhile, various Balmain club legends kept making media comments about the skint situation at the club without drawing the distinction between which club, Balmain or Wests Tigers? Morons like Farah and Marshall were getting confused and going to the RL press with stories about how the club owed them back pay and had financial problems - again, if Balmain had simply got out of the way, Wests Magpies would have been able to sort all of that out but it was difficult when Balmain insisted on retaining their 50% control and borrowing money to fund their debts rather than selling more of the joint venture to Wests Ashfield.

So when onfield results turned bad it was difficult to recruit quality players to a club with all those dumb rumours floating around it. The decline becomes self-reinforcing and voila! it's 2024 and we're on the verge of a Wooden Spoon threepeat. Gee thanks Benji and Robbie and all those IQ-depleted Balmain club legends. 

Balmain only had two assets: history and Leichhardt Oval and they don't own Leichhardt, Leichhardt Council owns it. Their long glorious history all occurred before 1970 and fan expectations long ago exceeded the ability of Leichardt Oval to deliver, not to mention the clubs' desire to have modern facilities to sell corporate box-type deals to sponsors. 

The record average crowd for Leichhardt is just over 18K which was during Wests Tigers "peak" years of 2005 and 2006 but during those years the crowds at Campbelltown were roughly the same. Fans clearly don't see some magical "Leichhardt premium."

[R L Winger]

As far as I know and it is a real pity, the Balmain Tigers are dead & burried with no Longer a Leagues Club or any team in any competition playing as the Balmain Tigers, the Balmain board member must of been tripping on acid to come out with that statement.

[The Future is League]

On 30/08/2024 at 04:25, THE RED ROOSTER said:

‘It hasn’t worked’: Balmain weighs up bombshell Wests Tigers split as joint venture pushed to brink

A bit more on the situation here.

https://www.foxsports.com.au/nrl/nrl-premiership/hes-delirious-tigers-legend-demands-director-axing-over-farcical-call-to-split-club/news-story/b203fd8fc8e34c312a4b97f4d782217a