'Not commercially sustainable': A-Leagues bosses explain axing half their work force
The bosses who axed more than half the Australian Professional Leagues' (APL's) workforce last month have broken their silence on the messy saga.
Roughly 50 per cent of the 80-odd people employed by the APL were cut as the $30 million in-house media arm KeepUp was disbanded less than three years after it was created.
Three weeks after that bomb dropped on Australian football, new A-Leagues commissioner Nick Garcia spoke to the Sydney Morning Herald to offer an explanation.
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"I don't think it was whether it worked... I think, just at this time, it's not commercially sustainable," Garcia said.
Josh Nisbet competes with Mathew Leckie during the A League Men's grand final. Getty
"The overarching point here is we're a football business, not a media business.
"We exist to create a great competition that our clubs thrive in and fans love to watch.
"The first thing about the A-Leagues strategy is it leads with a football strategy, and that is about being really clear about the sort of league you are.
"In the men's we're a development league, first and foremost. In the women's league we are potentially a destination league in Asia, but much more focused on retaining the great national team players rather than attracting international players.
"But over everything, we're about developing stars of the future."
KeepUp was designed to be a central news hub for Australian football fans, focusing on homegrown competitions while peppering content from Europe and Asia also.
Garcia says the strategy "did work to a degree" but the new bosses want to focus entirely on the A-Leagues, rather than catering for football more broadly.
