Ahead of this Friday night’s Isuzu UTE A-League season opener against Melbourne City, Brisbane Roar CEO David Pourre has penned the following message…
Dear Brisbane Roar members, sponsors and fans,
As our A-League Men head into their first match against Melbourne City, I wanted to personally share with you a few thoughts, insights and updates for the season ahead.
Warren and the boys have had another positive pre-season. Our travels throughout Queensland reflect our focus on servicing our home state. We send our thanks to Fraser Coast Council, Gold Coast City Council, Ipswich City Council and Moreton Bay Regional Council for their support as well as the thousands of fans who turned up to cheer on and interact with the team throughout this period.
These partnerships and the commercial support from our sponsors have enabled us to visit more regions, deliver more community clinics and Academy programs, engage more schools, expand our growing membership base and, ultimately, foster a love of football in more young Queenslanders, who now have better opportunities than ever to become the Brisbane Roar players of the future.
It is a real point of pride that we already have so many emerging and experienced Queenslanders across both the men’s squad and the women’s squad, which continues to train at the fantastic QSAC facility ahead of their first A-League Women’s match in just over a fortnight.
Quite simply, the excitement of a new campaign approaching is matched by the optimism we feel on a number of frontiers.
Of course, we still live in unique times and, like many businesses and organisations that we know have done it tough, we continue to work through evolving COVID restrictions and circumstances.
That brings challenges such as the matchday travel our players, staff and myself will have to undertake – with Queensland Government approval – this Friday. We will fly into Melbourne on the day of the game, play the match, fly immediately back and then remain in home isolation for 48 hours following our return to Queensland. As you can appreciate, these conditions are not ideal in a high-performance environment.
The club has endeavoured to provide feedback on the season draw to prevent these outcomes, however these decisions are held by the League and their decision is final. Despite the disadvantage, you can rest assured that we as a club and our players and staff are prepared, focused and will make the sacrifice to ensure the entire league can start without hesitation.
With the support of our wonderful members, fans and loyal partners, we know we can overcome this and any other challenge that is thrown our way. Our club is proud to represent you wherever you are in the world and represent our great state. We will always fight and never give in, and we hope you rally behind us.
Our shared resilience will always be the difference.
Now let’s Bring The Roar.
-DP
