FFA is girding for a legal stoush with broadcaster Fox Sports over the payment of $11.5 million due on Friday, according to a source close to the peak body.
And with $9.5 million in disbursements nominally earmarked for the clubs the fiscal picture for the competition has never looked more unstable.
But Fong is using the crisis as an opportunity to plot a more “solid future” for the three-time champions, albeit in a football world likely to be unrecognisable from when the clock stopped.
“The A-League will certainly be back but what that looks like is yet to be determined,” Fong told The World Game.
“I have great confidence the A-League will still be there.
“There were two things which were going to stop us finishing the season (ahead of the FFA endorsed freeze last month) and that was states locking down and a player getting infected - and they both happened.
“Of course the football landscape is all on hold at the moment - it’s a matter of surviving this.
“But I’ve no doubt things will come back and a crisis always presents an opportunity to ultimately do things differently and hopefully better once all the dust has settled. This isn’t all doom and gloom.”
Fong said the club were in constant touch with the squad and were "managing the situation as best we can”.
“This is not the end of anything,” he added. “We’re continuing to build the club behind the scenes and I expect to see a bigger Brisbane when we come back.
“We’ve been working and planning things for a long time and now with football shut down we’ve been able to bring things forward.
“There will be announcements to be made in the future regarding expanding our academy, our women’s development for the W-League, having a broader reach in Queensland and even things at our Logan training base like getting extra fields and expanding the facility in general.
“Things won’t, of course, be the same - but doesn’t mean we’ll be worse or better off necessarily.
“You talk about any business - we’ll all have to look at the sustainability going forward.”
Despite suggestions that player contracts across the competition face being slashed in a leaner, meaner future, Fong said such matters were not currently up for discussion amongst club chiefs.
“We haven’t thought about future player contracts - right now we’re just in hibernation mode and we’ll wait and see what the future holds,” he continued.
“The game in Australia will change but how dramatically I don’t know. I certainly don’t have a crystal ball.
“Who would have thought three weeks ago the USA would be leading the world in the amount of deaths at 26,000, to Italy’s 21,000. Australia has done a fantastic job in containing the coronavirus - and hopefully we’ll be playing again in the not-too-distant future.
“But right now, what’s focusing me most is the welfare and safety of those closest me and all our employees.”
Fong said the club had no qualms with coach Robbie Fowler’s recent return to the UK, stressing: “The League is suspended until April 22, and we’ll get an update from the FFA on that when the time comes,” he explained.
“But you can’t stop people from being with their families and loved ones and there was absolutely no problem from the club with Robbie returning home.”
