Soccer: Phoenix fans not worried by moving rumours

Wellington Phoenix fans cheer on the side. Photo / Getty Images

The thought of the Wellington Phoenix being rebranded as a New Zealand side or worse, moving to Auckland, has not gone down well with the football club's staunch supporters.

Wellington city councillor John Morrison says "reliable sources" have told him New Zealand Football and millionaire car salesman Colin Giltrap are looking to relocate the club and change the A-League club to the New Zealand Phoenix.

The club's owner, Terry Serepisos, New Zealand Football's chairman Frank van Hattum, and Colin Giltrap's son Richard said there is no truth to the rumour.

Members of the club's unofficial supporters club, the Yellow Fever, are less than impressed with the suggestion the club could leave the capital.

The Yellow Fever's Guy Smith doubted there was any substance to the rumour.

"I think it has been made up by someone - everyone has categorically denied it," he said.

Mr Smith said it did not matter how much money was pumped into the team, by Colin Giltrap or anyone else, without the fans it would fail - and pointed to Gold Coast United, who draw only a couple of thousand supporters each game, as a case in point.

Auckland had already shown its inability to get behind two A-League clubs, he said.

Fellow Fever-ite Dave Cross did not see the point of rebranding the side as the "New Zealand Phoenix".

"We've got a New Zealand football team - they're called the All Whites.
"If you have a look at the Breakers or the Warriors, who have tried to be branded as a New Zealand side, they've become entrenched in Auckland anyway. The only time they play elsewhere in the country is when it is a 'home' game for an Australian side."

Mr Cross said the "tribalism" in football is an important part of drawing fanatical support for a team, and the Phoenix would lose that if it became a national club.

"Football is about that parochialism," he said.

Phoenix supporter Dan Jourdain said if the club were to move out of Wellington it would lose his support.

"While I'm not a huge fan of moving games away, moving - and rebranding - the club would be a slap in the face to anyone who supported them from the start."

Former Phoenix chief executive Tony Pignata is also not a fan of the team moving north.

"Phoenix to Auckland? Never will happen," he wrote on his Twitter account, tpignata9.

"Wellington is the home of the Phoenix and always should be."

- HERALD ONLINE