Post by marinermick on May 5, 2006 9:31:25 GMT 10
Singo slams Lowy's 'conflict'
By Tom Smithies and David Lewis
May 5, 2006
CENTRAL Coast powerbroker John Singleton last night shook football's newly laid foundations by claiming billionaire Frank Lowy's double life as majority owner of Sydney FC and chairman of Football Australia has created a massive conflict of interest.
Singleton, who owns the rights to Central Coast Stadium, launched his broadside after Sydney FC sought to "poach" Lawrie McKinna, the Mariners' A-League coach of the year.
The multi-millionaire advertising guru and former Football Federation Australia board member believes Australian football would have slid back into the dark ages had Sydney been successful in snatching away the Scotsman.
"Think about it," he said. "You have the chairman of FFA trying to poach the coach of a club bankrolled by the governing body to a club he is the majority shareholder of.
"The conflict of interest issues are immense. Soccer has come such a long way under Frank Lowy and John O'Neill but had Lawrie gone it would have looked terrible for the game.
"You can't have a position where clubs don't trust the governing body. We certainly don't want to go back to the code's bad old days."
After hearing of Sydney's approach to McKinna, a furious Singleton - an admirer and confidante of McKinna's - phoned FFA chief executive John O'Neill to voice his concerns as Lowy had left for Europe earlier this week.
"I told him how it couldn't be allowed to happen," Singleton said.
"You would have had the Lowy family causing issues for the FFA. Frank, who is a good friend of mine, sees himself as the saviour of Sydney FC but he needs to be very careful in the future.
"I see this as a cautionary tale. Maybe if Frank had been here on the spot (in Sydney) this would never have been allowed to go so far."
It's understood that after O'Neill relayed Singleton's concerns to Lowy, the offer to McKinna was promptly aborted.
Singleton also accused the Mariners of "unforgivable" tardiness in leaving an out-of-contract McKinna open to alternative offers.
"Fortunately Lawrie's a man of honour and he also wanted to stay with the Coast," he said. "In fact, he's knocked back a lot of money to stay here."
It's believed that Singleton was so desperate to keep McKinna at the Mariners, he promptly drove from Sydney to Gosford to accelerate a new deal for him. The Mariners, whose executive chairman Lyall Gorman has recently been in hospital, rushed through a five-year contract which McKinna signed yesterday.
McKinna's agent, Leo Karis, said cryptically: "There were political power plays at the highest level in Lawrie's negotiations with Sydney, I'll leave people to join up the dots and come up with a pretty picture of their own."
Ecstatic at having secured McKinna, Singleton added: "Lawrie's a great coach and having him on the Coast is vital for the future. But not tying him up earlier was wrong.
"He needed to know he had a future at the club and now he does. Nobody is indispensable, but he's as close to it as you can get. He sells, buys, trains and helps administer the club. He's a future coach of the Socceroos."
Last night Sydney took a further hit from Littbarski, who launched a fresh broadside with the club in an interview on Fox Sports's Total Football.
Littbarski described Sydney chief executive Tim Parker as "the wrong man for the job" who knew "nothing about football", and claimed he had at first been asked to take a pay cut of 70 per cent.
The Daily Telegraph
By Tom Smithies and David Lewis
May 5, 2006
CENTRAL Coast powerbroker John Singleton last night shook football's newly laid foundations by claiming billionaire Frank Lowy's double life as majority owner of Sydney FC and chairman of Football Australia has created a massive conflict of interest.
Singleton, who owns the rights to Central Coast Stadium, launched his broadside after Sydney FC sought to "poach" Lawrie McKinna, the Mariners' A-League coach of the year.
The multi-millionaire advertising guru and former Football Federation Australia board member believes Australian football would have slid back into the dark ages had Sydney been successful in snatching away the Scotsman.
"Think about it," he said. "You have the chairman of FFA trying to poach the coach of a club bankrolled by the governing body to a club he is the majority shareholder of.
"The conflict of interest issues are immense. Soccer has come such a long way under Frank Lowy and John O'Neill but had Lawrie gone it would have looked terrible for the game.
"You can't have a position where clubs don't trust the governing body. We certainly don't want to go back to the code's bad old days."
After hearing of Sydney's approach to McKinna, a furious Singleton - an admirer and confidante of McKinna's - phoned FFA chief executive John O'Neill to voice his concerns as Lowy had left for Europe earlier this week.
"I told him how it couldn't be allowed to happen," Singleton said.
"You would have had the Lowy family causing issues for the FFA. Frank, who is a good friend of mine, sees himself as the saviour of Sydney FC but he needs to be very careful in the future.
"I see this as a cautionary tale. Maybe if Frank had been here on the spot (in Sydney) this would never have been allowed to go so far."
It's understood that after O'Neill relayed Singleton's concerns to Lowy, the offer to McKinna was promptly aborted.
Singleton also accused the Mariners of "unforgivable" tardiness in leaving an out-of-contract McKinna open to alternative offers.
"Fortunately Lawrie's a man of honour and he also wanted to stay with the Coast," he said. "In fact, he's knocked back a lot of money to stay here."
It's believed that Singleton was so desperate to keep McKinna at the Mariners, he promptly drove from Sydney to Gosford to accelerate a new deal for him. The Mariners, whose executive chairman Lyall Gorman has recently been in hospital, rushed through a five-year contract which McKinna signed yesterday.
McKinna's agent, Leo Karis, said cryptically: "There were political power plays at the highest level in Lawrie's negotiations with Sydney, I'll leave people to join up the dots and come up with a pretty picture of their own."
Ecstatic at having secured McKinna, Singleton added: "Lawrie's a great coach and having him on the Coast is vital for the future. But not tying him up earlier was wrong.
"He needed to know he had a future at the club and now he does. Nobody is indispensable, but he's as close to it as you can get. He sells, buys, trains and helps administer the club. He's a future coach of the Socceroos."
Last night Sydney took a further hit from Littbarski, who launched a fresh broadside with the club in an interview on Fox Sports's Total Football.
Littbarski described Sydney chief executive Tim Parker as "the wrong man for the job" who knew "nothing about football", and claimed he had at first been asked to take a pay cut of 70 per cent.
The Daily Telegraph
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