FFV vendetta: claim

THE president of Dandenong Thunder Soccer Club believes Football Federation Victoria is out to destroy his team.
On the eve of Thunder’s first home game lockout – this Saturday – president Driton Maliku said the FFV had an unjustified vendetta on the Victorian Premier League side.
“I believe it 100 per cent,” Maliku said when asked if the FFV was out to get the Thunder.
“Any small reason or problem and they’ll lock the doors on us in the Premier League and send us back to Division One.”
Last month, Dandenong was found guilty of a serious misconduct offence involving unruly action from the crowd.
It was the third time in the past 14 months Dandenong had been found guilty of a “serious” offence involving crowds at its home games.
After an unsuccessful appeal, the club was stripped of six premiership points, ordered to pay $20,000 and told to close its gates for two games – a punishment Maliku believes will cost his club more than $100,000 in revenue.
Last year Dandenong faced a similar sanction after one of its supporters abused a linesman and called him a “cheat”.
The FFV fined Dandenong $4000, stripped the club of three premiership points and forced it to close its gates for two home games.
According to the president, these types of sanctions would break the back of most Victorian soccer clubs, but the only reason Dandenong was still standing was because of the loyalty of its supporters.
“We’ve got huge support from the community and everyone is sticking together,” Maliku said.
“We owe a lot to our sponsors from 2010 and 2011, and they aren’t happy with the FFV either.
“They (the FFV) are waiting for us to slip up.
“I have been involved in soccer for nearly 40 years and this is the worse thing that has happened to a club… anything can happen now, we are in a terrible position.”
Despite the gloomy skies surrounding Thunder’s future, Maliku is putting extra measures in place to ensure there is Thunder – but no thunderstorm.
“We are going to keep an eye on the crowd and we are going to have more marshals on the ground so we don’t have random people walking in off the street and hurting our club,” Maliku said.
Star unsuccessfully tried to contact the FFV for comment.