EnergyWatch Sponsorship Cancelled

[Mgdee 319]

Could we please have the name of the company taken off this thread.

It sickens me to see it on anything associated with Melbourne & it's fans.

[Redleg 38,194]

Just saw some of his facebook rants on the news, it was even worse than I thought. Disgraceful.

[Biffen 12,450]

Nothing about Maltese Aboriginals though .Conspiracy?

[DemonDan... 77]

So thanx to the Mod who deleted my non abusive reply, after being called a hypocrite for no reason..

Get a life.. and stop embarrassing yourselves on a daily basis, 'regulating' something that rarely needs it..

[Satan 2,786]

Out of left field view , delibrate attempt by pollis to get sponsorship contracts broken by other party to save coy from going bust?

[Guest Thomo]

Is this post serious DeeMfc or are you just trying to wind me up?

Schwab has been saying sponsors have been lining up for months and has not delivered, this is no different.

http://www.afl.com.au/news/newsarticle/tabid/208/newsid/132360/default.aspx

For someone who can almost guarantee they have been in more sponsorship negotiations than other Demonlanders you got this one awfully wrong thomo....

Melbourne CEO Cameron Schwab said while possible new sponsors had come forward the loss of EnergyWatch's sponsorship was a financial blow.

"Like most organisations you have contingencies built into your financial situation, it will be a blow, we understand that but it's the price we pay to maintain our integrity," he said at a packed news conference on Thursday.

"We've had a number of phone calls."

[Chook 14,620]

Out of left field view , delibrate attempt by pollis to get sponsorship contracts broken by other party to save coy from going bust?

No. They take place over the course of months and years, so unless he has a DeLorian or a Frozen Donkey Wheel buried at the bottom of a well . . .

Edited April 5, 2012 by Chook

[Goodvibes 3,596]

I'm a little worried about this sponsorship situation. If only the club could find a way to generate more media exposure to help lure a sponsor.

[Jaded No More 59,538]

At least nobody is talking about Jack Watts anymore.

[Mgdee 319]

At least nobody is talking about Jack Watts anymore.

Jack WHO????

[Jordie_tackles 354]

Just saw some of his facebook rants on the news, it was even worse than I thought. Disgraceful.

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/afl/racists-empire-in-ruins/story-fnctrk3q-1226320103641

yep wow..... also suggests his worth is $100M

[Dee Fan 3,247]

I remarked on here just after the signing of the sponsorship that it seemed an awful lot of money coming from a company that had an anticipated turnover of $30m for the coming year and an actual turnover of $14m for the year before. This was always shaky and I cannot see how they ever could have afforded it. Now we have this coming out in the AFL Site.

http://www.afl.com.au/news/newsarticle/tabid/208/newsid/132360/default.aspx

It has also emerged that EnergyWatch had been behind in its payments to the club.

Surprise, surprise.

There has been a cloud over this Company and Polis for quite a while now and I'm amazed that we didn't pick it up; one of the posters on Demonology said some time ago that we didn't have a sponsor as he doubted that Energy Watch would survive, he appeared to have some inside information several months ago.

I'm very disappointed in the club, they haven't done a great job of due diligence here and it seems that there we were so keen to get the cash they didn't check the product or the owners and right from day one there have been stories coming out about investigations etc by the ACCC.

Edited April 5, 2012 by RobbieF

[RalphiusMaximus 5,994]

I have often thought that when I'm a gazillionaire I'd sponsor Melbourne to have nothing but the club logo and player numbers on their jumper. It would bring me such a massive sense of pride to see the club standing for nothing but itself. While I understand the necessity of sponsorship, I hate seeing their names all over the great jumper.

[Biffen 12,450]

I have often thought that when I'm a gazillionaire I'd sponsor Melbourne to have nothing but the club logo and player numbers on their jumper. It would bring me such a massive sense of pride to see the club standing for nothing but itself. While I understand the necessity of sponsorship, I hate seeing their names all over the great jumper.

Great noble ideas like this are rare in a time when failed fashion designers and sacked copywriters can get a marketing degree that teaches them to invade private and public domains with all their might and crap to bring us a new brand of undies.

[Biffen 12,450]

I'm a little worried about this sponsorship situation. If only the club could find a way to generate more media exposure to help lure a sponsor.

Maybe we need a SEX scandal-just to get us some more er.... exposure!

[Range Rover 1,935]

http://www.heraldsun...q-1226320107779

As much as anyone I applaud the club's response yesterday but the question has to be asked ... shouldn't Schwab have done more research before getting into bed with this scumbag? A bit of digging around would surely have rung a few alarm bells.

It's a fair question to put to our CEO.

Edited April 5, 2012 by Range Rover

[Nasher 33,187]

I remarked on here just after the signing of the sponsorship that it seemed an awful lot of money coming from a company that had an anticipated turnover of $30m for the coming year and an actual turnover of $14m for the year before. This was always shaky and I cannot see how they ever could have afforded it. Now we have this coming out in the AFL Site.

According to Schwab in the press conference yesterday, sponsorships being behind in payments was not out of the norm in the industry, and that EW had recently made a payment that had brought them up to date. Basically, he said this was a non-issue but as usual the media have run with it anyway. Draw your own conclusion, of course, but I think it's quite a jump to get from "he made racist remarks" to "the finances were never up to scratch anyway". In time you may have proven correct, but we'll never know now.

http://www.heraldsun...q-1226320107779

As much as anyone I applaud the club's response yesterday but the question has to be asked ... shouldn't Schwab have done more research before getting into bed with this scumbag? A bit of digging around would surely have rung a few alarm bells.

It's a fair question to put to our CEO.

According to Schwab in the press conference yesterday (yeah, that one again), they still believe they did all the diligence. I don't think it's reasonable to be checking someone's private facebook page, and I highly doubt anyone else does this. You also (depending on how the user sets it up), need to "friend" a person before you can read their stuff. What would I do if I had a friend request from a potential employer (or corporate partner, etc)? *reject*.

We don't what "due diligence" was done - but for mine there's nothing that could be done in order to uncover this sort of thing. Even if you did research in to the personal activities of the CEO, where do you stop? What about its board members, middle level management etc?

[Forest Demon 4,681]

At least nobody is talking about Jack Watts anymore.

Jack Watts, isn't he that guy who did all those EnergyWatch ads...disgraceful

[Range Rover 1,935]

According to Schwab in the press conference yesterday (yeah, that one again), they still believe they did all the diligence. I don't think it's reasonable to be checking someone's private facebook page, and I highly doubt anyone else does this. You also (depending on how the user sets it up), need to "friend" a person before you can read their stuff. What would I do if I had a friend request from a potential employer (or corporate partner, etc)? *reject*.

We don't what "due diligence" was done - but for mine there's nothing that could be done in order to uncover this sort of thing. Even if you did research in to the personal activities of the CEO, where do you stop? What about its board members, middle level management etc?

Unless the person has a private 'friend list' of just a handful people - and I doubt Ben Polis is the type of character to have very few 'friends' on Facebook - it wouldn't be that difficult to find a way to view his private page. The social networks of the corporate elite in Melbourne would be well cross-pollinated. You'd just need to know someone who knows someone who knows someone, dig around a bit and voila, you're sitting in front of a laptop reading his racist/sexist bile.

The other way is to simply do as the Heraldsun have done and conduct a bit of private muckraking and sleuthing. With millions of dollars at stake perhaps we should have done just a bit more research on a bloke who, without a hint of irony, wrote a book called "Only A Mother Could Love Him".

* Re your last point, I think you can start and stop at the top. If the CEO in charge is a person of good standing and character the fallout would be far less damaging and, you'd assume, dealt with swiftly by that person (ie. the offending board member, middle management would be summarily removed/fired. Problem over).

I think Schwab will be under the pump more than we think here.

Edited April 5, 2012 by Range Rover

[Nasher 33,187]

Unless the person has a private 'friend list' of just a handful people - and I doubt Ben Polis is the type of character to have very few 'friends' on Facebook - it wouldn't be that difficult to find a way to view his private page. The social networks of the corporate elite in Melbourne would be well cross-pollinated. You'd just need to know someone who knows someone who knows someone, dig around a bit and voila, you're sitting in front of a laptop reading his racist/sexist bile.

The other way is to simply do as the Heraldsun have done and do a bit of private muckraking. With millions of dollars at stake perhaps we should have done just a bit more research on a bloke who, without a hint of irony, wrote a book called "Only A Mother Could Love Him".

I think Schwab will be under the pump more than we think here.

I'm not saying it's not possible, I'm saying it's not reasonable. So say we do start a policy of "read the CEO's facebook page of major sponsors" - where do we stop? Do we read its board members facebook page? Do we read the facebook page of every new employee for the club?

I think it's absolutely the club's responsibility to ensure the company checks out - in the club's view it did (though this may have proven to be debatable in the long run as RobbieF et al touched on). I remain to be convinced that it's the club responsibility to check out individuals from the company before proceeding.

[Range Rover 1,935]

I'm not saying it's not possible, I'm saying it's not reasonable. So say we do start a policy of "read the CEO's facebook page of major sponsors" - where do we stop? Do we read its board members facebook page? Do we read the facebook page of every new employee for the club?

I think it's absolutely the club's responsibility to ensure the company checks out - in the club's view it did (though this may have proven to be debatable in the long run as RobbieF et al touched on). I remain to be convinced that it's the club responsibility to check out individuals from the company before proceeding.

Added a final point with asterisk* on to my last post re your argument.

Edited April 5, 2012 by Range Rover

[Webber 10,181]

Here's a shovel ...

And we've got plenty more digging to do.......a certain 20 goal plus thrashing this weekend is just going to sharpen the knives of every media idiot out there. We are at serious risk of becoming a footnote in history.

[Biffen 12,450]

http://www.heraldsun...q-1226320107779

As much as anyone I applaud the club's response yesterday but the question has to be asked ... shouldn't Schwab have done more research before getting into bed with this scumbag? A bit of digging around would surely have rung a few alarm bells.

It's a fair question to put to our CEO.

I think we knew he was as dodgy as a bag of Snakes but we decided to overlook that for 2 million good reasons .Also he had a personal battle with ADHD which made us pity him .What we didn't know was that he was also a complete [censored]

[timD 994]

http://www.heraldsun...q-1226320107779

As much as anyone I applaud the club's response yesterday but the question has to be asked ... shouldn't Schwab have done more research before getting into bed with this scumbag? A bit of digging around would surely have rung a few alarm bells.

It's a fair question to put to our CEO.

I love armchair quarterbacks. You guys are great.

We should ask the same questions of 3AW, truenergy, momenum energy, Melbourne Victory, Melbouren REbels...but no, you won't do that, will you? Harold Mitchell, a bloke who does nothing but sniff the winds of publicity went with this mob too...but it's Cam's fault.

some of you people like kicking people when they are down. It is sick.

[sue 8,499]

If MFC didn't do the level of due diligence some corporate captains posting here would have liked, neither did 2 other sporting clubs.

The thing that Schwab clearly did wrong was even mentioning that Energywatch were (temporarily) behind in their payments. Better to have said nothing about that.