By CAMERON LUCADOU-WELLS
DANDENONG Thunder president Merson Azizi has vowed his club will survive after a Football Federation Victoria appeal tribunal halved a home-game lockout ban for next season.
Last night, the tribunal handed down a spectator lockout at all Thunder home games until June 30, an increased $45,000 fine and the loss of three championship points for the firing of at least two rocket flares and throwing at least two hand-held flares by spectators at the Victorian Premier League grand final in October.
One of the rocket flares caused minor injuries to two girls in the crowd — but a direct hit could have been fatal.
It also ordered all Thunder members — which totalled about 200 this year — to attend the FFV’s ‘respect and responsibility’ course by June 30.
This morning, Azizi said the club would not seek a Supreme Court appeal ‘‘at this stage’’ but would work with the FFV.
‘‘This penalty is better for the club. It means we will have at least 6-8 games to play at home with open gates.
‘‘We feel cultural change has come in the last couple of years but we may still have to change a couple of things. It’s too early to say what we will change at this stage.’’
During the hearing, Thunder executive member Cesar Jacupi cast serious doubts on whether the Victorian Premier League soccer club could overcome a 10-home game lockout of supporters — the penalty originally imposed by an FFV tribunal last month.
The ban would shut out fans from the vast majority of Thunder’s home games during 2013.
Mr Jacupi claimed the penalty — including a $40,000 fine — could cost up to $280,000 in lost gate takings, sponsorships and memberships, and possibly kill the club.
Soon after the hearing, Mr Jacupi said the revised penalty could still jeopardise the club, costing it about $200,000. A Supreme Court appeal was ‘‘not out of the question’’, he said.
Greater Dandenong councillor and club supporter Jim Memeti told the tribunal the club was vital to the community’s disadvantaged youth. He revealed council-approved plans for $800,000 expanded clubrooms at Thunder’s home ground to allow female players to change separately from men.
‘‘I’m defending the community. I’m really worried about our youth. There’s a 77-year-old supporter here who’s asking why am I being punished?
‘‘I think the club should be punished but you have to keep it in context with what the effect is on the community.’’
The Thunder had ‘rolled the dice’ last night, putting itself in peril of a harsher sentence by reversing its guilty plea for club misconduct.
Thunder’s advocate Leslie Glick SC argued for the case to be thrown out by casting doubt on whether the people who threw and launched flares were Thunder supporters.
Mr Glick said that under FFV rules the grand final was an Oakleigh home game. As the perpetrators had not been identified, they were nominally Oakleigh supporters under the rules.
The tribunal’s three-member board found the offenders were Thunder fans given the flares came from the Thunder supporter’s end of the stadium and were fired after Thunder goals.
Tribunal chairman Kim Lovegrove warned the club’s line of argument could lead to removing the prospect of a lighter sentence from an early guilty plea.
In the end, Mr Lovegrove and his two colleagues reduced the lockout but made a stern warning to Thunder leaders to push ‘‘cultural change’’ at the club and weed out the ‘‘minority’’ of ‘‘apples spoiling the apple cart’’.
He was unimpressed by one repeat offender, a Thunder ‘core supporter’ who spat at an official last year and was banned for two years for abusing a security official at the 2012 grand final.
‘‘What’s so very important to this club is for your leaders and present people that there has got to be cultural re-engineering.
‘‘What troubles my friends would be nothing much was planned [after last year’s offences] … it didn’t effect any cultural change. The game needs not to have this menacing behaviour.’’
Mr Lovegrove said the ‘‘not flippant’’ sentence was designed to assist Thunder ‘‘pulling [its supporters] into line’’.
‘‘You can say to them: ‘Look at what you have done to us, look what you have cost us … the bona fide individuals who give to your community.
‘‘We’re giving you the stick to bash the errant individuals.’’
He thanked Cr Memeti for his ‘‘passion’’ and sympathised with the ‘‘predicament of the bona fide people that put so much in’’ to the club.
‘‘You’re responsible for your fold. You’ve got to get your fold in order.
‘‘We know what critical work this club does in the community so we’re not trying to denigrate that critical role.’’
