They looked doomed to me

WOW. they are screwed.

They owe the combined league salary cap + another $3mil!!

Im sorry, but seriously how do you incur that much debt?
Maybe its all these payments to Joey to go to Vegas and "scout players".

So they managed to resolve the $12mil debt...Big deal..then what?
At the end of the day, the debt is incurring because of awful financial processes and a lack of self-control by the club.

Unless you sort out those processes first, then these debt problems will come back to haunt them in the next few years (assuming the investors bail them out this time)

The headline is far more dramatic than the story.

11 million + of that is owed to the owners. That is common on a balance sheet, it does not mean they are demanding the money be paid, but they would want to be listed as a creditor for all sorts of reasons to do with this play.

MACDUB, I don't think it's "real" debt, just money that the owners have sunk into a club that's lost money over time. It mentions "as much as" (e.g., probably less than) and that all but $500k of that is with the owners. Given that they owe Joyce $300k+ (I heard closer to $500k from somewhere), that pretty much accounts for it all between the owners and Joyce.

This is definitely not my area, though one of my clients recently went through and emerged from administration and I got to participate in the creditor process a little bit. Hopefully someone in finance can chime in. But I got the impression that they're implying that if it's wound up, the majority of any proceeds will head to the owners rather than Joyce. Maybe their play is just to clean slate and start again.

Like HO said, most of the debt is owed to the owners. So I wouldn't count that as a must pay back debt.. In saying that, how much longer will the owners bank roll this team if they are owed 11m+ after a few seasons? There's only so much they can fork out until they wave the flag.

I think the Gold Coast is a sporting grave yard. Rollers couldn't "make it". NRL & A-League are having issues with support. Give it some time & im confident that the AFL team will have the same issues.

I don't want another team to fold, but maybe the league should take a good hard look at that market.. Are they able to sustain so many national sporting teams? I know i harp on this a lot on Twitter etc, but maybe it's time they call David Biwer about his old TAS/Hobart NBL bid he did 6odd years ago and re-visit it, instead of putting teams in these sporting grave yards.

In this type of situation - the company in administration cannot owe its "owners" anything - BUT it CAN owe money to another legal entity that is "owned" through another process, by the same "owners".

If set up properly all that happens is that those "owners" hold debt that could have been structured to be the very next debt that needs to be paid from any assets AFTER government charges ( such as ATO - which always comes first) are paid off.

This can put third tier debts ( such as J0yce's ) in a situation where there is no money to be devolved to them, particularly if the NBL license ( an asset) is on-sold for a nominal amount by the administrators.

You can even have the apparently legal ( but assine and possibly unethical) situation where - say - a "MS Smith" has lent $1m to "coast NBL" limited , who then buy an NBL licence, 3 years later they go into administration, and the independent administrators then dispose of the NBL licence asset to a "Blaze NBL " entity for $500,000 , who purchased that licence with funds lent to "blaze NBL" by the same Ms Smith.

Blaze NBL now have the NBL license,and a debt of $500,000 to Ms Smith - "Coast NBL" passes $200,000 to the ATO, $300,000 goes to discharge Ms Smiths loan , and no further money is available to "coast NBL" creditors, which then becomes bankrupt.

this is just an observation of what MAY be possible - and does not meant that this is actually happening here .

Thanks Very Old!

Joyce's award is actually $530k+ including costs.

Who has to pay costs if Blaze went bankrupt and j0yce ended up with nothing..?

"costs" are generally a reimbursement of only part of "costs" of the legal action's "winner" actual legal costs - often both sets of lawyers have to come to an agreement of what was the "costs" - which is often less than what is billed (and paid)

So the lawyers of the "winner" still get paid usually PDQ, the lawyers for the "loosing" party that goes belly-up -if not allready mostly paid up by their "as-you-go" invoicing - generally get their snout into the trough (always) after the ATO, but well before the "winner" can get to get reimbursed by the now belly-up "loser"

not real nice behavior IMHO

$350k plus didnot include the lawyers' costs.

Just been informed that the Blaze do have a valuable asset. Their NBL licence. Worth $4 million.

Think they way Very Old put it was a simply way of outlining the current situation at GC.

They are simply going to offload the license back to themselves and pay out the ATO and leave nothing for Joyce.

you'll find it is quite common practice in business for this to happen as a way of not paying certain debts....however that said they always leave enough money to paid: ATO/taxes & sometimes even the bank loans. This way the ATO don't chase & there other entities - And as per in this case there won't be enough cash for Joyce/third tier creditors and he'll be left with very little if anything at all!

Hence Gleeson is watching this case very closely!

Why didn't they take up the time payment plan that BJ offered them?
I don't think the Tomlinson's have ever publicly said they intend to pay as soon as they can. Happy if someone can find that from past articles.

I agree with Greg.

If they always planned to pay j0yce then why did they let the issue go to court?

Surely administration costs money too and all this puts them in a potential hole with recruitment? Wonder if they regret not handling it differently?

Not the only coach going legal to get money owed

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/sacked-adelaide-united-coach-broke-facing-deportation/story-e6frea83-1226363502827

The contracted players are all feeling totally confident. If there was any concern atall, Worthington would be gone off the coast and back as a Tiger under the coaching of Anstey. Although I doubt they could afford him. Some very strong assurances were given.

Well, it's a lucky thing for those four contracted players really that if the shit DOES hit the fan, at least three of them would have been the most sort after free agents this season and would have no problem getting a job with any other team that still has a spot on their roster and even if not, I'm sure some concessions would be made to fit Goulding in somewhere...

In case anyone is interested, GC Blaze contracted players (4) were all paid on 1st June as normal.