Real work just getting started for Auckland A-Leagues club backers

ANALYSIS: The end of the beginning is nigh with regard to the return of professional football to New Zealand’s largest city, but the next 12 months are likely to make the last six look sedate by comparison.

A lot of work has been going on behind the scenes since Australian Professional Leagues fired the starter’s pistol in March, with chief executive Danny Townsend making it clear they were after an Auckland club to join A-League Men and Women from the 2024–25 season.

The race to be the backer of that team is understood to have been all but won by the consortium centred around Marc Mitchell, the Auckland-based American with a small ownership share in the Breakers, who is in advanced discussions with APL, as Stuff reported on Wednesday.

Former ASB Classic boss Karl Budge is understood to be associated with the Mitchell-led consortium, though the exact nature of his involvement is unclear. He did not reply to a request for comment this week. Budge is a canny, experienced sports administrator who would be a big help in getting the commercial aspects of the new franchise off the ground.

There was another bid centred around former All Blacks lock Ali Williams and his partner Anna Mowbray – one of the three siblings behind the multi-billion dollar Zuru Toys empire. The others are her brothers Mat and Nick, though it is unclear whether all the Mowbray trio were involved. Messages sent to Anna and Nick on social media in recent weeks have not received replies.

While 1News reported the Williams-centric interest on Thursday as if it were still a live prospect, football sources Stuff has spoken to this week have indicated otherwise. Those sources said the focus is squarely on the Mitchell-led consortium, with some form of announcement by them imminent – and at one stage, on the cards to have taken place on Wednesday, though that obviously never happened.

The nature of consortia could mean there is yet a place, if they’re interested, for one or more of the Mowbrays and/or Williams, who is said to have been looking to draw on European football connections made during his time as a rugby player in the northern hemisphere. APL were known to be keen to have a wide range of parties involved in the final ownership group.

The third group prominent in discussions in New Zealand football circles is the one helmed by Ivan Vuksich, the long-serving chair of the country’s leading domestic club, Auckland City, and property developer Alex Sipka. Just as Mitchell registered a new company, Auckland Football Limited, in late July, Sipka and Vuksich registered the company Auckland FC, in September 2021, as they began drawing up plans for what an Auckland A-Leagues venture could look like, as an entity distinct from Auckland City.

The amount of effort and research put into those plans has been said to have impressed APL officials when they began reaching out to the Auckland football community earlier this year. Several sources believe the Mitchell consortium is set to benefit from that homework, with Vuksich and Sipka and potentially some of the other unidentified backers they had found in line to be involved. Vuksich declined to comment when contacted by Stuff this week.

Finding the right person to run the football aspects of the new club is set to be the most important item on the new Auckland franchise’s to-do list once it can officially get started. High-profile former All Whites Tim Brown, Ryan Nelsen and Winston Reid are said to have been tapped as potential ambassadors or advisers, but none of them would be the right fit for a director-of-football type role.

After that, the next most important item will be the appointment of coaches – a task made harder by the strict licence requirements that are presently in place, ruling out most local options. The 2023–24 A-League Women season starts in five weeks, the A-League Men season in six. A little over 13 months to get two teams ready for the 2024–25 seasons that will follow a year later is not a huge amount of time and the timeline will be even tighter by the time coaches are put in place

NZ Football will also need to quickly identify what impact a second pro team will have on its amateur domestic competitions, with the women’s leagues especially set to be drained of talent. If nothing else, the looming search for players is set to make for an intriguing backdrop to the coming men’s and women’s National League Championships, starting later this month, not to mention the Wellington Phoenix men’s and women’s campaigns, starting in October. The Phoenix stand to benefit from having a local rival and the NZ derbies should be spectacular.

When you think about everything that has to happen over the next 60 weeks or so, it’s easy to get a little bit nervous. One only hopes that Mitchell and everyone else involved have a fair idea of what they’re in for. Will any rich-list names pop up? Mowbray certainly isn’t the only one being bandied about, but only time will tell. Football club ownership isn’t for the faint-hearted, after all.