Future of the Phoenix

Surely Serepisos is going to have to sell the club. Especially now that it appears the loan he was securing is a con and he's probably just lost $1.5M to a fraudster.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10710692

Also, can the fans really complain too much Rojas leaving considering the financial problems Serepisos has been having? Even if it was the fans that paid his scholarship to the club.

Is he leaving? I know its pretty unrealistic in this day but it would be nice to see kiwis show some loyalty at times, esp since Herbert coaches both the Pheonix and All Whites

feel pretty sorry for TP...hes done so much for football, I really hope it works out for him...... but hes starting to look more and more like the classic case of someone over leveraging themselves to live the dream

Yep. He's going to the Melbourne Victory:

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/wellington-phoenix/news/article.cfm?c_id=242&objectid=10709358

The Phoenix should be fine- someone will pick up the slack pretty quickly I reckon.

The Sooner Mr Brylcreme leaves the better IMO

Half the club is now owned by the owner of Spanish Primera Liga club Racing Santander and NZ Football who are still flush with World Cup dollars have made repeated insurances that they would step in if Serepisos is forced to sell. Given they'd only need to buy half now the club will be fine for the time being.

Losing Rojas was a blow but they should've signed him up to a longer deal ages ago, that they let it come to this is their own fault. The Phoenix offer was also the most lucrative but it wasn't about money obviously and I guess the chance of winning things and advancing his career with the possibility of playing in the Asian Champions League were the real clinchers. His Dad has says he wanted to do 2 more years in the A-League before looking at Europe and so I guess he saw Melbourne as the best chance of winning a title. It's sad but as I said if they'd signed him up and actually lived up to their potential this season they could've kept him. Fact is last season was probably the clubs most disappointing given what the pre-season expectations were.

Actually fuck just did some further reading and it seems the deal with Racing Santander owner hasn't materialised, which is extremely concerning. The way the media reported it it initially was that the deal had been done rather than it being a potential deal. Either way NZF can (and will if necessary) save the Phoenix in the short term, the club is too important to football here without it we're back to where we were 20 years ago.