North feeling pressured to relocate to Tasmania (Age)

[one-eyed]

North Melbourne fury as club claims it is being pressured by league to relocate in Tasmania

    Michael Warner
    From: Herald Sun
    March 04, 2013

NORTH Melbourne stalwart Ron Joseph fears the club is being pressured by the AFL into becoming the league's Tasmanian team.

Joseph yesterday added his weight to a supporters' group demanding the club board limit to four the number of "home" matches that can be played outside Victoria each year.

"The fear of every North supporter is that the club is once again in the sights of the AFL," Joseph said.

Club chairman James Brayshaw gave supporters a "cast iron guarantee" on Saturday that North would not relocate while he remained in charge.

But the We Are North Melbourne supporters' group has put a motion to change the club's constitution and force the board to obtain the approval of members for any extra matches played outside Victoria. Members will vote on the resolution at the annual general meeting on March 19.

Brayshaw said his board did not support it because it would be too restrictive on future administrations.

Joseph said he smelt a rat.

"The resolution shouldn't be a problem for James Brayshaw - he is the one who boasts that he gave the club back to the members," Joseph said.

"He didn't. Bob Ansett and Peter de Rauch did that. And the resolution simply protects any board on its own whim - or in cahoots with the AFL - picking the club up and packing it off to Tasmania or merging it.

"Why wouldn't every member support it? All it is saying is that members have got a right to have their voices heard if there is any proposal to go to Tasmania or to merge.

"I don't trust the AFL and the way they go about things. North would be playing in gold stripes now on the Gold Coast if they had got their way (in 2007).

"The AFL is top-heavy, overpaid and dangerously unaccountable."

North will play two home games in Hobart this season under a three-year deal that began last year.

Former Kangaroos chief executive Eugene Arocca has also backed the supporters' group.

"Anything more than four home games interstate is a step towards relocation," Arocca said.
 
http://www.news.com.au/sport/afl/north-melbourne-fury-as-club-claims-it-is-being-pressured-by-league-to-relocate-in-tasmania/story-fnelctok-1226589536227

[Smokey]

"The AFL is top-heavy, overpaid and dangerously unaccountable."

Ron Joseph nailed that didn't he!   

[Rampstar]

North should be relocated to Tasmania. Everyone knows it. The Tasmanian Kangaroos is a foregone conclusion IMHO.

[tigs2011]

Only people who don't know it is the Kangas themselves. 

[torch]

Hobart Kangaroos ...

JUST DO IT AFL!

[Eat_em_Alive]

Only people who don't know it is the Kangas themselves. 

Hahahaha
Sedate them, ship em down there and let em wake up in the changerooms prior to rd1

Though in all fairness I would not want to degrade the people of tassie by saying they also have skataboner spirit

[one-eyed]

A proposed constitutional change capping North Melbourne's interstate 'home' games at four a season has been defeated at the club's annual general meeting on Tuesday night.

http://www.afl.com.au/news/2013-03-19/north-says-no-to-cap-on-home-games


Nothing to stop North playing more and more home games in Hobart now.

[Hellenic Tiger]

I bet they won't get 100 million to move there.
Pathetic footy club.

[tiger101]

AFL will probably push them to play extra games in Tasmania to cover the Hawks when they leave. From memory I don't think the AFL was to happy when Hawks resigned because at that time they(AFL) wanted kangaroo's to take over their games. Alot of this will all depend on a government change in the state and budget.

[DCrane]

North Melbourne are one of our greatest enemies, it would be sad to see them go.
But the league with 18 teams have already diluted the talent pool, that needs to be capped. And Tassie does deserve a side, I don't think anyone would deny them that, especially now that Blacktown Football Club have a side in the league.
So the bottle is pointing at the North Melbourne footy club, like it was at Fitzroy 20 years ago.
This is what the president gets for trying to have a bob each way. Equalisation politics might help them stave it off for a couple more years but as we know some clubs are more equal than others if they cooperate with HQ- and the AFL will quickly grow tired of subsidising their 10,000 crowds at Etihad.