An announcement is due in the next month that will see the Kangaroos record a profit of around $1 million.
“It’s a fantastic result and will allow us to pay down our debts by a further million dollars,” Dilena told Andy Maher and Andrew Gaze on SEN.
“It’s really due to the strong support of our members. We’ve had a lot of members contributing to our debt reduction campaign, some really good fundraising efforts throughout the year, and the commercial side of the business is pretty strong. It’s shaping up really well.”
The profit is similar to that achieved in 2012, allowing the club to take a significant chunk out of its debt.
“Two or three years ago it was around about $8 million in total, with various things taken into account. Where we are getting to or aiming to get to by the end of this year is 2.75 (million). It’s been a fantastic effort to get it to there. We really are able to keep reducing it over the next couple of years.”
Dilena says the result is even more impressive given the investment North has made in its administration and football departments this year.
“The core business we’ve shaken up a little bit and made some real progress on that front. It’s all about trying to make as much money as you can to try and fund football these days.”
In the past month, Geoff Walsh has re-joined the club as Director of Football, while Leigh Tudor and Gavin Brown have been among the new coaching appointments. Lindsay Thomas, Scott Thompson, Ben Cunnington and Aaron Black also committed to long term deals.
A recent spate of good news ties in perfectly with North’s new membership theme, ‘We will rise together’.
“The campaign was all structured around an open training day we had, we had a lot of supporters along and we setup the visual with them holding up Drew Petrie,” he added.
“We’ve used that as the symbolism for the campaign, because it’s all about our members getting onboard and supporting the guys for on-field success.”
