US businessman Bill Foley announces new Auckland based A-Leagues team
The billionaire’s new club will play in the A-League Men’s comp from next year.
The billionaire’s new club will play in the A-League Men’s comp from next year. LAWRENCE SMITH/STUFF
- The new Auckland A-Leagues club is set to reveal its name, colours and kit in March
- Seven players have been signed for the men’s team’s inaugural campaign
- Feedback on the potential name ‘Auckland Black Knights’ has been taken on board
The new Auckland A-Leagues club backed by American billionaire Bill Foley is set to reveal its name, brand identity and playing kit next month, while several signings, including at least one All White, have been made for its men’s team.
Chief executive Nick Becker said they were aiming to lift the veil of secrecy in the first half of March. Director of football Terry McFlynn and men’s coach Steve Corica are then due to head to the Middle East to watch two All Whites matches later that month.
Corica and McFlynn have been in Auckland for the first time since their appointments last December over the past 10 days, meeting with local clubs, NZ Football and other interested parties, as well as attending the Halberg Awards.
They were joined by the third member of the club’s fledgling football department, former Socceroos and Sydney FC analyst Doug Kors, who has come on board as head of recruitment.
The trio have been busy in that regard, already signing seven players for their first campaign and aiming to have around 15 in place by mid-March. Corica is also starting to put together his backroom staff, with his team’s first pre-season set to begin on July 1.
None of Becker, Corica and McFlynn were willing to divulge any names, noting that some of the signings were still contracted to other clubs, though McFlynn did confirm the seven signings boasted “a sprinkling” of All Whites caps.
Sources outside the club identified a list of five players who have either been signed or are priority targets: Goalkeeper Michael Woud, defender Francis de Vries and midfielder Cam Howieson, who have all played for the All Whites, and midfielder Luis Toomey and forward Jesse Randall, two under-23 internationals with Paris Olympics hopes.
The Auckland A-Leagues club’s billionaire backer Bill Foley with chief executive Nick Becker at the launch of the club last November.
PHIL WALTER / GETTY IMAGES FOR A-LEAGUES
“They’re all very good players,” was all McFlynn would say when those names were put to him. Speaking more broadly with regard to Auckland’s canvassing of New Zealand talent, he said “we don’t want to leave any stone unturned”.
“We want to get the best team possible in year one, year two, year three. We know that some players out there aren’t achievable in year one, but the conversations have already started for year two and year three.
“This isn’t a quick fix. It’s a longer-term project. We want to build a club that’s going to have sustainable success over a long period of time. It’s important for us to have as many New Zealanders as possible.”
Corica played alongside All Whites coach Darren Bazeley at Walsall in England’s lower leagues right before they both came down under for the first season of A-League Men in 2005 – Corica with Sydney and Bazeley with the New Zealand Knights.
He said visiting Abu Dhabi to watch the All Whites play Egypt and either Croatia or Tunisia would provide an excellent opportunity to learn more about about the state of New Zealand men’s football.
“We’re going to go and watch the games and hopefully meet a few of the players as well, that we haven’t met already. It shows that we’re very keen on New Zealand players and getting as many back as possible.”
“We’re working hard every day,” he added. “We get a lot of phone calls from agents and players wanting to come to Auckland and play. They see the big project as well, with the owner and his multi-club vision.”
Foley made his money in insurance and first took an interest in New Zealand as he invested in its wine and hospitality industries. He first entered the world of sport by backing the Las Vegas Golden Knights hockey franchise that joined the NHL in 2017, then entered the world of football when he bought English Premier League club Bournemouth in 2022, leading a group of partners under the Black Knight Football Club banner.
As well as getting behind professional football’s return to Auckland after a 17-year absence, following the folding of the NZ Knights, the country’s first A-Leagues club, Black Knight Football has ownership shares in French Ligue 1 club FC Lorient and Scottish Premiership club Hibernian FC.
Corica and McFlynn said they had been able to draw on the expertise and resources of those other clubs in assembling their inaugural men’s squad, which is set to play out of Mt Smart Stadium.
When the Auckland club was launched last November, Foley expressed his preference for Black Knights as a potential name, drawing on the names of the teams at the United States’ West Point military academy, which he graduated from in 1967.
In mid-January, the club sought feedback on the potential name Auckland Black Knights in a survey that was shared in several places, including a Facebook group set up by an eager fan looking to build support for the new teams.
While responses to the survey itself, including trolling ones from fans of New Zealand’s sole existing professional football club, the Wellington Phoenix, were private, the comments in the Facebook group were largely negative, noting the connection the “Knights“ has with the failed former A-Leagues club and that it had no link to Auckland.
Becker said the club had settled on a name and colours and was now busy working with ThoughtFull Design and the True creative and design agency on firming up their brand identity and producing content for when they go public next month.
“The announcement of the name will be something that we hope football fans will be able to get behind. I think it’s a strong football heritage name, but it also speaks to our ambition and the global piece as well.
“We’ve taken the fans’ opinions on board and we’ve landed in a really good place. I don’t want to spoil the surprise any more than that.”
Former Sydney FC coach Steve Corica will be the first coach of the new Auckland A-League Men team.
MATT KING / GETTY IMAGES
While Auckland sports teams usually wear blue and white, blue and black could be on the cards if the Black Knights moniker is included in some form, with Foley noting at the launch last year that the colour black is strongly associated with New Zealand on the international sporting stage.
All will be revealed in March, the same month A-League Men comes to Auckland in the form of a Phoenix home match against Sydney FC at Eden Park, scheduled for the 16th.
That date, a Saturday, marks the end of the first half of March, the period in which Becker is hoping to make Auckland’s big announcements. So are they looking to piggyback on – or counter, depending on your view – an occasion Phoenix boss David Dome is hoping will produce a record-breaking regular season crowd figure for his club?
“It would be quite a good idea, wouldn’t it?” was all Becker would say this week, declining to be nailed down with regard to specific timings.
He did confirm the club has a kit partner in place and a to-be-announced training venue to use while it looks for somewhere to establish a base of its own. More pressingly, there is a need for some office space.
The club’s headcount currently sits at five, with Becker, Corica, McFlynn and Kors joined by chief commercial officer Mike Higgins, best known in football circles for being involved in the One Shot for Glory campaign around the All Whites’ World Cup qualification push in 2010.
Two more roles – a head of consumer business and a head of marketing – are being advertised at present, which means it won’t be long before the club has to stop “squatting,” in Becker’s words, at the offices of its sister company, Foley Hospitality, in the Britomart precinct in downtown Auckland.
He said the past week or so, with Corica and McFlynn passing through ahead of permanent moves, had felt like a milestone. “It’s the exciting side of building a club. You get to think ‘this is starting to feel real’ every time something happens”.
Football Fern Hannah Wilkinson has painted a mural celebrating New Zealand’s victory over Norway.
Football Fern Hannah Wilkinson has painted a mural celebrating New Zealand’s victory over Norway. The mural is at Auckland United football club in Mount Roskill.
https://imasdk.googleapis.com/js/core/bridge3.627.0_debug_en.html#goog_1341918205Play Video
Football Fern Hannah Wilkinson has painted a mural celebrating New Zealand’s victory over Norway. The mural is at Auckland United football club in Mount Roskill. VIDEO CREDIT: KARANAMA RURU/STUFF
Becker said he had come away from initial meetings with local clubs enthused about the extent to which the city might get behind its new football teams, with Auckland’s entry into A-League Women scheduled for 2025.
“Someone like (former All White) Fred de Jong at Ellerslie is already talking about how they’ll get everyone to come to their clubrooms before games, have a beer or two, then travel on a bus together to Mt Smart.
“Hearing those sorts of things from key people within the football community already is fantastic. It’s amazing to have the support we’ve got from everybody.
“Everyone is super positive about what we’re trying to achieve and I just want to make sure that we maintain that level of engagement and positivity.”
