With their season now officially ended, the Newcastle Jets can begin the post-mortem on yet another season that has begun with some promise, only to conclude in disappointment. Exit interviews will be conducted, players and coaches offered new contracts or moved on, and plans will be put in place for improvement in 2023-24. All the morose niceties that come with another campaign to forget.
For coach Arthur Papas, however, there is one signing more important than any other the club can make: a new owner to finally end the club’s awkward, limbo-like state.
Never a bastion of stable proprietorship, the Jets have been without a formal owner since Martin Lee was stripped of the club’s licence in January 2021, with Football Australia and the Australian Professional Leagues citing “clear failings” and a lack of investment in over a year.
In the aftermath, funding for the club was taken on by a consortium of fellow A-Leagues clubs, allowing it to continue to field teams in the A-League Men, A-League Women, and various local youth competitions.
But despite multiple reports of potentially interested parties, whispers of deals being near, and league officials declaring their belief in imminent resolutions, no new investors have emerged to rescue the Jets from this state of ownership flux over two years on.
Appointed ahead of the 2021-22 season, Papas has spent his entire Jets tenure under this model and speaking after his side lost 2-0 to Sydney FC on Saturday, sealing a tenth-placed finish and condemned to a playoff for a spot in next year’s Australia Cup, he said that it was a situation that threatened the club’s viability.
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“It’s the most important part,” he said. “I don’t think the most important part is who’s the coach or who’s the players? The most important part is getting some stability into his club.
“I’ve been very clear that I’m very grateful – and the club and community should be very grateful – towards the ownership group that is currently in charge.
“It’s not easy to sell a club and also you don’t want to lose a club because that’s the threat, if you don’t have ownership you’ll lose the whole club. But ultimately, if we’re going to look for a signing in the offseason, that’s the biggest signing we can make.”
Yet another season in the books without finals football to show for it stretched an ignominious run for the Jets, who have now missed the finals in twelve of the past 14 seasons since winning the competition in 2007-08.
The club has finished on eight wins, five draws and thirteen losses in both of Papas’ years at the helm, an improvement on the circumstances he inherited, but the coach said that everything needed to be evaluated to improve further, starting with himself.
“I feel that we’re closer to being a finals team,” he reflected. “Because up until last week, we were right in the mix.
“Am I pleased with the performances? Not entirely. I feel that we could play a lot better, consistently over the course of the season. I’ve got to reflect on that and understand why that hasn’t happened.
“The first person that needs to be assessed is myself. Look at why that’s the case: whether it’s a matter of recruitment, whether it’s the matter of the process of coaching, there are a lot of factors that contribute to performance.
“Overall, I can see we’ve made progress. Two years ago we were 18 points outside the six… last year we were ten, and now we’re six. So, ultimately, without really a change in external factors around us that affect us daily, there’s progress. I’ll never be satisfied.”
Unfortunately for the Jets, Papas indicated that some players in his squad had declined offers from the club to pursue opportunities elsewhere, with the coach citing the ongoing uncertainty surrounding McDonald Jones Stadium as hampering their efforts to retain and attract talent.
“I’m aware of some of the ones that we’re losing,” he said. “We’ve made what I think from a club point of view are some good offers to a couple.
“But we’re not competing with some clubs in this league, that’s very clear. We’ve got some factors around how we operate as well which is a disadvantage for us.
“We’ll lose a couple and that means others will get opportunities, we’ll look for the next batch that can hopefully take this club into finals.”
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