In 2006 the FFA revoked the licence of New Zealand Knights and transferred it to New Zealand Soccer.
In 2007 Terry Serepisos funded the licence for Wellington. They were given a three year licence.
In 2011 Terry Serepisos encountered financial difficulties and was forced to relinquish ownership of the club. The club was taken over by a group of local businessmen, Rob Morrison and including Gareth Morgan, Lloyd Morrison and John Morrison.
In 2015 the FFA failed to confirm the provision of a new licence to Wellington.
In 2016 the FFA provided the club ten year licence which included a number of financial and operational metrics that needed to be made by the club to ensure their continued participation.
In 2020 the club secured the back end of their licence tenor despite not hitting the agreed financial and operational metrics.
In 2020 the Australian Professional Leagues (APL) secured ownership rights of the A-League competition from the FFA. The existing A-League clubs comprised the APL ownership group, including Wellington Phoenix. This independence of the FFA all but secures Wellington’s participation in the A-League for the medium term.
Insights.
No other club has endured the existential trials of Wellington Phoenix. From its inception Wellington has had to mauver administrative challenges by virtue of its status as an Oceania based team in an Asian competition. This has created push back from the Asian Football Confederation.
Australian administrators and fans have also brought into question the purpose of a New Zealand team in the Australian league, no time more so than in 2015 when the FFA imposed tough operating metrics following tense negotiations that threatened to end Wellington Phoenix’s participation in the A-League. Some of these challenges are embedded in the club’s operations, not just the tyranny of distance, but also the inability to participate in continental competition, not the ability to host home matches in the Australian Cup.
In terms of ownership, once again the property crash of the GFC impacted its initial ownership, however similar to isolated outposts like Adelaide and Perth, Wellington has been able to secure support from parochial local businesspeople.
Limitations and considerations
Information has been accumulated based on publicly available reports and may not be entirely correct.
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