PORT ADELAIDE chief executive officer Keith Thomas says it is a significant moment for the club to bring in MG Motor as a joint major partner.
MG Motor and Port Adelaide have agreed to a five-year partnership, which Thomas believes allows both the club and company to plan confidently heading into the future.
“Any joint major partner you can bring to the club is significant,” Thomas told media at Montefiore Hill on Tuesday afternoon.
“It provides financial stability and security. The five-year term enables you to plan with confidence.
“More than anything else, it is just a great brand alignment. MG have a great history but a really exciting outlook for the future.
“We are thrilled to be a part of it.”
Thomas said the club was thrilled with the signing of MG Motor and he believes they, along with GFG and the club’s other corporate partners, put the club in a really strong position looking forward.
“Everyone in the football industry understands how significant these partnerships are,” he said.
“They give the club great confidence and they are not easy to attract. We are thrilled with it.
“It’s such a great alignment with such powerful global brand. If you mix that with the partnership with GFG and the other corporate partners we have, it really is a pretty significant portfolio.”
MG Motor’s decision to join Port Adelaide wasn’t dependent on the China game according to Thomas, with the company looking at embracing the Australian market, but he did admit the China connection was a bonus.
“The MG strategy is very much an Australian market play,” he said.
“The association with China was a lovely bonus, so the game isn’t significant for this partnership.”
A decision about the Power’s fixture with St Kilda in Shanghai in May has not yet been decided, and the Port Adelaide CEO said everyone’s best interests would be taken into account, but they would not rush a decision.
“We are like everyone else at the moment and watching it really closely,” Thomas said.
“We are concerned about the Chinese community in particular and the pressure they are under and the difficulties they are facing.
“From our point of view, we don’t play until May 31, so we’ve got time. We will take our time to make what will be a very important decision.
“We will take the best advice that is possible to us. We are getting that from the Australian Government, the Chinese Government and the World Health Authority.
“At this point it’s a wait and see, but we are concerned about it.”
Thomas said the players are being regularly kept up to date and they trust the club to make the best decision taking everything into consideration.
“The reality is our players are keen advocates for the game,” he said.
“They trust the club’s processes and that we have their best interests at heart, and we will make a decision that will in no way compromise anyone’s health.
“If we decided to make that call and a player decided he didn’t want to go for whatever reason, there’s no way we would force that.
“Our players have not expressed any of those concerns. They are simply waiting for us gather all of the information we need.”
