“…However, attendances have generally been poor, especially in 2009-2010, on the Central and Gold Coasts, in Brisbane, in Townsville, and in Newcastle. Recent news articles report that A-League average crowds for the opening five rounds are down again in 2010-2011 for the second year in succession (2008-2011Smithies, 2010b, p. 79), and the FFA was forced to bail out financially troubled Newcastle Jets for a short time period before a new owner was found (Bosnich, 2010;Gatt, 2010;Smithies, 2010a, b, and see the interview with the FFA CEO Ben Buckley reported by Hassett, 2010). As at 21 , Smithies (2010c reports that the FFA had paid Newcastle Jets' staff and player wage bill for four weeks prior to the club announcing its new private owner.…”