Soccer clubs hold back entries

Press, 12 September 1986, Page 36

Soccer clubs hold back entries

By

DAVID LEGGAT

Rothmans League soccer clubs are unlikely to apply for places in next year’s national competition until they know details of sponsorship, even if that means passing the entry deadline of September 30. Mr Noel Robinson, a spokesman for Football Promotions, the 12 league clubs’ organisation, said yesterday that clubs were still' waiting to hear what the New Zealand Football Association has in mind for sponsorship next year. The company which has provided sponsorship throughout the league’s 17-year existence is stepping down at the end of 1986. “The general view of the clubs is that they can’t prepare realistic budgets without knowing the terms of the sponsorship,” said Mr Robinson. The N.Z.F.A. and Football Promotions are having fortnightly meetings, and from these talks, Mr

Robinson, who is chairman of the Papatoetoe club and also an N.Z.F.A. councillor, said he was hopeful sponsorship details would be finalised before the end of September.

Any of the 12 clubs in the league is free to apply whenever it wished, added . Mr Robinson. “No club is committed to that philosophy, but clubs who (collectively) are used to forking out millions of dollars each year are not really prepared to do budgets which might be wildly inaccurate.” The national league is being enlarged to 14 teams next year. However, the secretary of the N.Z.F.A., Mr Gwyn Evans, confirmed yesterday that no entries had been received for the 1987 league. There was, he added, no particular significance in the setting of September 30 as the deadline, other than that it signalled the end of the 1986 competition.