A 15,000 capacity stadium. 800 plots of land. 63 hectares reinvigorated. This was the vision behind a major development that would invigorate Tarneit, a suburb in Melbourne’s west, delivering a state-of-the-art sport, entertainment, business and residential precinct. The hero of this: Western United FC.
It was intended that the club would drive visitors and business to the area, while lining the pockets of property developers as thousands would undoubtedly come in droves. Such was the scale of this ambitious investment that Western United’s A-League licence centered around the development, with Wyndham City Council working alongside Western United’s owners, the Western Melbourne Group (WMG), as a key investment partner.
One problem: Football Australia revoked their licence earlier this month, and the club’s future is hanging by a thread.
Western United’s story is tumultuous. Established in 2018 and making their A-League debut in the 2019-20 season, their strategy was, much like the Tarneit development: bold, unassuming and ambitious.
Panagiotis Kone, a Greek international, was announced as their first signing. Alessandro Diamanti, a former West Ham midfielder and veteran of Serie A and B was the second marquee signing, and would be the club’s inaugural captain. Besart Berisha, who held the A-League goal scoring record at the time, rounded out a trio of high-profile signings.
‘United’ would finish 3rd in their opening season and fell short of a grand-final berth, bowing out in the semi-finals. After a humbling second season, the Club were crowned A-League Champions in the 21-22 season. Since then, they have finished 7th, 11th and most recently 3rd, again bowing out in the semi-finals.
High-Risk High-Reward
As financially lucrative as the ownership of the Club could be, it is ultimately a leveraged position – financial returns predicate on the precinct development being fully realised. The investment from WMG into the club would be very similar to an airline – high upfront capital costs with an equally high rate of burning cash and profits to come a lot later down the track.
The club do have a win in the sense that they don’t pay rent for the stadium as part of a value-capture arrangement with the Wyndham City Council. The idea behind this is that the Council provide the stadium to the WMG Holdings Co Pty Ltd, the development arm of WMG, at no cost. Once the stadium is complete and the traffic into the area has increased, Council will use profits generated by the sale of the parcels of land to the developer (now at a higher price as a result of the stadium, among other things) as pure profit to re-deploy into their community. Land parcels would be sold to the developer in stages, pending completion of various milestones. Wyndham City Stadium would be the first privately owned stadium in the country, and the value-capture model would be the first deal of this kind within Australian sports.
Part of the team’s on-field inconsistency can be attributed to never having a permanent home. In their first two seasons, matches were played at Kardinia Park (GMHBA stadium), before moving to Ironbark Fields, a 5,000 capacity stadium within the Wyndham Stadium Precinct. United’s permanent home is intended to be Wyndham City Stadium, the flagship 15,000 stadium that is yet to be built. The commercial impacts of this are huge.
Western United have the lowest average attendance in the league: a measly 3,500. The lack of feet through the stadium cause an issue – cash management by the ownership group must be extremely prudent. Still, such limited capacity means that gameday revenues can’t grow enough to support the level of expenditure required to maintain competitiveness within a first-tier professional competition. It means that the coffers of the owners need to be readily available to support the club.
Reported losses from financial years 2023 and 2024 exceed $23m, while the most recently reported debt figures suggest a negative balance sheet to the tune of $55m. We then move into ‘going concern’ territory – can Western United operate in such a way that they can cover their outstanding liabilities into the future? It is a requirement for every company in Australia and is a base requirement within Australian corporate law. Combining the financial results, along with the cash management pressures by the minimal revenue generated and we have the situation. It is then no surprise that the ATO have commenced proceedings against the club, for an $800k debt owed to the tax office. A hearing is scheduled today in Federal Court. The financial mismanagement of the club would be a major reason as to the Football Australia decision to revoke its licence, though no official reason has been communicated publicly. Earlier in the year, FIFA imposed of a three-year registration ban on Western United earlier in the year relating a payment dispute with one of its players. Another player was caught up in a betting scandal, laying blame on late wage payments.
Problems extend beyond the club as two of their owners have had financial trouble of their own. Former Socceroo, Steve Horvat’s family-owned company was in liquidation earlier this year, with the company owing over $11m to creditors, including $4m to the ATO. His company even loaned $625k to Western Melbourne Group, foregoing payments to its own employees. More recently, club chairman, Jason Sourasis, has faced his own challenge: a $3m director penalty notice from the ATO.
So, how can Western United move forward? If only there was someone to save them…
A Takeover to Save the Day
Such is the scale of the disaster that any hope of survival for the green and black rests solely on a takeover from KAM Group. So much so that even the current ownership don’t hide away from this, not that they really have a choice: it is simply boom or bust. About $100m from KAM and the Club would be safe. The fact that a takeover agreement was announced in May this year, and is still not finalised, speaks to the dire situation. $100m to acquire 65% of WMG would value the company around $150m.
KAM Group are a company owned by the Kaminski family, whose sport-focussed subsidiary, KAM Sports, have recently been linked to takeovers of Everton in the Premier League, and smaller clubs within Europe, only for those to fall over due to late payments to players (sound familiar?). The Kaminski family have amassed their wealth through real estate (what a shock), and have characterised an investment in WMG as a – you guessed it – ‘infrastructure move’.
Unfortunately for Western United players and fans, it is a bust, with the Australian Financial Review reporting on August 27 that the deal has been cancelled. A member of the Kaminski family was quoted saying ‘we’re going to be stepping away from the transaction…if they’re not making wages payments on time, they’re not operating the club appropriately’. In spite of this, KAM haven’t completely closed the door and would be open to a different deal, one where their investment would be focussed on the property development, not on salvaging the club from its debts.
Final Word
At the end of the day, this entire deal was all about making money through property – the Club is simply a conduit to facilitate the extra value derived from property development, for both developers and the Council. With the next A-League season commencing in a matter of weeks, fixturing remains up in the air, as do the futures of Western United’s staff, both on and off-field. The Wyndham City Council has protected its assets and ratepayers, though should the trajectory of the WMG Group and the club continue, they look to be back to square one.
As unfortunate this situation is, the financial mismanagement of the Club is adequately penalised by the integrity and governance rules created by FIFA and its member organisations, in this case, Football Australia. In recent times we have seen historic European Clubs face the same fate, clubs with long and rich histories, but these situations are what licencing rules are designed to protect against.
Western United’s downfall raises discussion more broadly about the success of expansion clubs within the A-League, which will be the focus of the next article in this series.
Sources
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-08-08/a-league-western-united-stripped-of-licence/105629622
https://www.afr.com/property/residential/home-games-a-socceroo-a-subdivision-and-the-unpaid-super-20250425-p5lu7l
https://www.afr.com/companies/sport/western-united-football-club-loses-licence-as-stadium-dream-fades-20250804-p5mka2
https://www.afr.com/property/commercial/kam-sports-abandons-100m-soccer-property-deal-with-western-united-20250827-p5mqch
https://www.afr.com/companies/sport/john-aloisi-s-soccer-team-plays-on-despite-ato-audit-20250328-p5lnav
https://aleagues.com.au/news/who-are-western-united-new-owners-kaminski-background-details-plans/
https://www.smh.com.au/sport/soccer/western-united-stripped-of-a-league-licence-three-years-after-being-champions-20250808-p5mlh4.html
https://www.wyndham.vic.gov.au/project/wyndham-stadium-precinct
Vok's View 
Great article, keen for volume 2
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