Tana prepared to bankroll Perth Glory again should Sage quit

Former Perth Glory chief Nick Tana has revealed his willingness to take the reins again if owner Tony Sage was to walk away amid demands from some disgruntled fans for him to quit over the club's salary cap saga.

Perth Glory Nick Tana Tony Sage

Perth Glory fans show their colours against Sydney FC (Getty Images) Source: Getty Images Asia Pacific

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With Sage feeling the reverberations of Glory’s expulsion from the A-League finals and the resignation last Friday of CEO Jason Brewer over salary cap breaches, Tana said the club had not been run 'correctly' but stopped short of calling for Sage's departure.

“If the time was right and the circumstances were right, I would not turn my back on the club, nor the game,” said Tana, who made his fortune with fast food chains Chicken Treat and Red Rooster before turning to property and horticulture.

“I am out of the stadium management as of last year (Tana previously held the rights at nib Stadium) and as such I have cleared the decks to be ready, willing and able (to step in) if circumstances necessitated.”

The tycoon, whose net worth is thought to be over $200 million, presided over two national league titles before handing back the licence to Football Federation Australia in 2006.

He still attends virtually every home game as a devoted supporter and is convinced that Glory can win A-League crowns in the future.

“We have a football culture in Perth. It’s a bit harder now in terms of Sydney and Melbourne having the glamour but Perth is unique and clubs from here have won championships in basketball and in the NSL previously," he said.

“We can certainly be a powerhouse ... it just has to be done correctly and to date it hasn’t been done correctly."

Sage, who claims to have pumped $20 million into the club over eight years, remains bullish over his continued involvement with Glory for whom his passion burns brightly.

He would not relinquish the licence without seeking significant recompense while Tana would not be willing to pay more than a token amount.

Fans group Perth Terrace is calling for a boycott of Sunday's match between Glory and Melbourne City in protest at Sage's ownership, but Tana won’t be joining them in seeking to turn nib Stadium into a ghost ground.

“Since handing back the licence I have missed probably 12 games in 10 years," he said. “I am there every week and I will be there again on Sunday, albeit that I have had trouble filling my corporate suite because nobody really wants to go.

“To say I am not saddened by the situation would be very untrue – the diehards will still be there to support the club, I would like to think.

"We’ll probably be lucky to get 6,000 along to the game. But I am there thick and thin, good and bad, and I will keep supporting, irrespective.”

On Friday, Sage wrote an open letter to fans expressing his shock at the FFA’s findings and insisting there was not an ingrained culture of rorting at the club.

Tana expressed a measure of sympathy for his successor while pointing the finger over the management issues which allowed Glory to fall foul of salary cap regulations.

“I have had past disagreements with Tony (over the management of the stadium) and I have only ever met the man three times," he said.

“On all those occasions, he said all the right things but whether those right things happened to be acted on is different story.

“No sooner did we have our meetings and things were done differently. But as an individual I have absolutely nothing against Tony and I wish him well.

“But I wish him well quickly, so he can do the right thing by the club.”

In 2011, Tana was heavily linked with taking the A-League licence which ultimately went to Primo Smallgoods boss Paul Lederer at Western Sydney Wanderers.

In reference to Brewer's exit, Tana said: “One doesn’t know if the issues are endemic or not, but there had to be fallout.

“Is the fallout sufficient? Time will tell. You have to give people the benefit of the doubt but at the end of the day you still have to perform in all areas of the club, whether it's membership, the fan base, playing ... everything has to work.

“And there are areas that haven’t been working. We were close to it by virtue of the stadium and we knew what they were doing in that regard.

“I am out of it now and I can talk about the stadium management and quite frankly there was a lot left to be desired in how the club was running.”

Tana was embroiled in a long-running dispute with Sage over the cost of using the stadium, with the Glory boss insisting the club was being overcharged while Tana insisted Sage had inflated the figures and was 'telling porkies'.

Tana is dismayed by the gates this season at nib Stadium which, even before the buffeting of the cap investigation, were struggling below the 10,000 mark despite the club sitting atop the ladder mid-season.

“That’s something they need to address,” he added. “It’s a whole combination of things and not just one area and I am not close enough to make a judgement call.

“But clearly their priority is as much off the field as on it. It was embarrassing and disappointing that they could not get much more than 9,000 people to home games."

Glory’s average this season is 9,864.


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5 min read
Published 18 April 2015 9:42pm
Updated 19 April 2015 4:54pm
By David Lewis
Source: SBS

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