It’s merely the nature of football that at some point in time a club – whether it be the boardroom, coach, one or more players – will experience internal disagreements about issues on or off the pitch. At the Ballarat Red Devils however, new coach Savas Saglam is faced with the reality of the 2015 senior squad of local players refusing to train under him and the current club administration.
Saglam is a former Brunswick Juventus, Polonia, Fawkner, Oakleigh, Frankston Pines, Holland Park and Coburg star who had a four-month stint with Turkish and European giant Galatasaray in the 1980s. He also played representative football, making the 1981 Australian Schoolboy’s team.
Equal to his broad playing history in Victoria, Saglam’s coaching experience has seen him at the helm of a number of clubs, including Hume City, Richmond and Dandenong Thunder, as well as Melton Redsox, Fawkner Blues, Southern Stars and Essendon Royals. His most recent role was as Technical Director at Whittlesea Ranges.
Saglam started as senior coach at Ballarat just two weeks ago on the 4th of January and very quickly and bluntly gained an appreciation for the challenges he would face. All it took was to open the local Ballarat paper, The Courier, to find an article by the paper’s senior sports journalist David Brehaut about a statement provided to the paper from the senior players. They had recently met and unanimously agreed to support a three-man Working Party, which had been appointed at the club’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) in November. Their mandate was to review the club’s governance structure.
Off the pitch, the governance and control of the Ballarat Red Devils has been described as a “shambles”. The club has a unique control structure comprising both a Members Club and an Investment Company. It has been widely reported the Members Club has been without a president and member-voted board members since the AGM in November 2015. However, investigation by TCF has identified the Members Club has only ever had three registered board members in its two year history. That is, three board members of the 11 positions detailed in the club’s constitution.
TCF understands it was these governance challenges that led to the resignation of 2015 senior coach James Robinson. These same challenges are at the heart of the player’s refusal to take the field. The players have thrown their full support behind the Working Party, who have convened a Special General Meeting (SGM) for the club. The players and the Working Party have publicly stated they do not recognise the authority of the Investment Company to make binding decisions at the club, including the appointment of Saglam as coach.
Thus Saglam finds himself in a position where the existing senior squad from 2015, and as TCF understands, the Under 20s squad from 2015, are refusing to train under the guidance of the club and his leadership. Those squads train separately from the club, maintaining their fitness in the hope of a suitable resolution at the SGM facilitating their return to the club.
Saglam has had to make moves to put a team on the park. He is now just over a month from the club’s first fixture against Moreland Zebras at home on Saturday 20th February. The outcome of the meeting on the 21st January is obviously yet to be determined, and he simply could not have waited the extra three weeks without a playing squad at all. Therefore, he started the process of identifying players who would take to the pitch. In the first instance he reached out to the senior squad from 2015 asking them to come and train at the club and allow him to observe and start the process of building a team. This approach was rejected.
Saglam therefore had to look further afield and seek players in Melbourne who would be prepared to come to Ballarat to train and play. Through his network of players and coaches, he soon found some options and built a group of players who were able to make the journey to Ballarat to train. Whilst sources have told TCF there may have been around 10 players on any given night at training, for Saglam it was nevertheless important to begin that preparation for the year.
The club’s first pre-season friendly was against Dandenong Thunder on Saturday. TCF understands the location of the game was changed from Dandenong to Ballarat at the last minute at the request of the home club. The Thunder line-up, bouyed by a raft of recent signings by coach Huss Skenderovic, arrived at Morshead Park and hour and a half before the match to be greeted by padlocked gates and a security guard who was none the wiser. Following a 30 minute wait, the venue was open and NPL football had returned to Ballarat in 2016.
Dandenong Thunder made their way on to the pitch. There were lingering doubts as to how many players would feature in the Red Devil’s colours. Those doubts quickly disappeared when a full squad of 21 players came out of the race sporting the recognisable kit with club sponsor McDonalds Ballarat on the front.
Two halves of football ensued, with the Devils putting on a good display, considering the line-up has been together for about two weeks, has rarely all trained together, and was playing its first full match hit-out. The final result was a 1-2 loss to the Thunder, the goal being scored by former St Albans Saints striker Tomislav Trbuhovic.
After the match, Ballarat coach Saglam spoke exclusively to TCF, sharing his thoughts on the match. “I thought for our first up match we were quite tight at the back. However, the boys put in a big effort and I was pretty proud of them,” he said.
In terms of the positives that were gained from the first hit-out, Saglam said, “we got some minutes into our legs. We only started pre-season with these guys on the 4th of January, so that’s the main positive. Secondly, I’ve got to see how these boy are at match tempo.”
“I have some players here today I haven’t seen at all before so it’s good to see how they go,” he added. “I’ve got about half the boys on the pitch that I am familiar with. I tried to keep them on for the full ninety minutes to give us some stability. At the moment its going to be a week by week process. Obviously I’d like the Ballarat boys to be involved as well. Hopefully we’ll have a strong team” he said.
Given the circumstances, it was appropriate to ask Saglam about the off-field activities and the impact on his job and preparation, including if he had any concerns about his own position at the club. He responded by saying, “No, not at all. I’ll just follow the process and I’m a good coach. Hopefully I can do the job. No problem.”
This was followed by Saglam explaining how the off-field challenges affected him over the first few weeks: “I didn’t expect what’s happened. There has always been an invitation to the local boys, right from day one,” he said. “Let’s work together and let the off-field stuff take its course. It’s always been that way and it still is that way. I can improve this team 400 per cent. But I’d like those boys involved as well. I have a very big network to access the players we need.”
The governance and club issues had been around for a while prior to Saglam being appointed, with the coach having existing knowledge of the situation. However, he added that he wasn’t aware of the extent of the animosity. “I wasn’t expecting to have two separate groups training. I’ve been around the game for a while and I have never experienced that before anywhere.”
The last discussion point with Saglam was to recognise how deep the player issue was within the club, and if this just affected the seniors, or the Under 20s and the younger groups as well. “I was the TD [technical director] last year at Whittlesea Ranges and we put together a magnificent junior structure,” he said. “The advantage we have is those leagues start later in the year. So I need to prepare for the 20th of February, that’s my first aim. If the club needs help with that junior structure, well I’ve got a big network. At Ranges last year, our Under 13s were State Champions and our Under 15s played in the Grand Final, and I almost set those teams up from a zero base. So we can do that but we want the Ballarat people involved”.
Saglam, the club, the players and the broader football community in Ballarat will be waiting to see the outcome of the SGM at Morshead Park on Thursday night.
There is no doubt the members will vote their directors on to the board, which have been vacant, in accordance with their rights in the club constitution. The real question is who has the decision-making authority in accordance with the NPL Participation Licence. Does that authority sit with the Members Club or with the Investment Company? More importantly, who can actually answer that question?