Financial Ruin
Just three months after competing in a Grand Final, financial disaster was to beset the club, on 10 December 2010 the Devonport Football Club was to announce that they were facing a debt of $507,525 and faced impending collapse should a white knight not be found. AFL Tasmania's CEO Scott Wade announcing that the club had fourteen days to prove to the sport's governing body that they were able to put plans in place to reduce the debt or they would face immediate expulsion from the Tasmanian State League for poor financial management. The NTFL stating that they would not let Devonport Football Club back into their competition should this eventuate and cross-town rival East Devonport refusing to enter into amalgamation talks with the club would most likely see the club go into extinction. The club is no stranger to financial turmoil, having been in trouble for most of the previous twenty years stemming back to their appointment of former Hawthorn legend Peter Knights as senior coach in 1990. By 1998 Devonport were close to extinction with a debt of $709,067 and were only saved by an approximately $246,000 loan from the Devonport Council in order to pay off some of their creditors. Urban legend amongst football writers and punters on the North West Coast was that the club were well known to have been in almost a quarter of a million dollars debt when they joined the TSL in late 2008, but the full extent of the financial problems were not known by AFL Tasmania until the sport's governing body appointed an independent administrator to oversee the running of the club in late 2010 whereby the extent of the financial problems were fully disclosed as Devonport Council also called in their loan to the club at the same time. After a change of board of directors, the club were granted donations of approximately $200,000 by a number of North Western businessmen and other supporters in the community and as such, were granted permission to remain a member of the Tasmanian State League.
Read more about this topic: Devonport Football Club
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