Retiring captain Nigel Boogaard was farewelled along with leading scorer Roy O'Donovan, Ali Abbas, Matt Millar and Jack Simmons. Also leaving are loan players Luka Prso, Ramy Najjarine, Liridon Krasniqi and Syahrian Abimanyu.
Dylan Wenzel-Halls off to Western United
Jaliens gives me the horn
Lawrie walks away from Jets...
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JUNE 22 2021 - 6:30PM
A-League soccer: Lawrie McKinna calls it quits after five years at helm of Newcastle Jets
James GardinerJames Gardiner
Local News
DEPARTING: Jets general manager Lawrie McKinna has resigned.
LAWRIE McKinna is confident that the Newcastle Jets are in stable position and believes the time is right to "move on" from the A-League club.
McKinna resigned as general manager on Tuesday, almost five years to the day after he took charge of the embattled A-League franchise.
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The affable Scotsman will continue in an ambassadorial role, but will no longer be involved in the day-to-day running of the organisation.
"The big thing for me is that the club is stable, it is moving ahead," McKinna told the Newcastle Herald. "The new owners are investing money into the club, with a view to it being sold down the track. The club is on the right track now. It is time for me to move on."
McKinna was moved sideways in January after a new consortium of four owners of rival A-League clubs took control of the Jets following the exit of Chinese businessman Martin Lee, who had his licence revoked.
Shane Mattiske was appointed executive chairman.
McKinna played a key part in Lee purchasing the Jets from Football Australia in 2016, and has since been the face and the brains behind the operation.
He helped take the Jets to a grand final, ensured the team had a greater community presence and used his own money to keep the organisation afloat after Lee stopped funding the club.
"When Martin Lee bought the club he had three goals," McKinna said. "One was to qualify for the Asian Champions League, one was to get into a grand final and the other one was to break even. We did two out of three. We got the losses down but that was when Martin pulled the pin on funding.
"That 18 months before the new ownership came in was hard. The team is here for the long run now."
READ MORE: PAPAS IN WINGS AS JETS READY FOR REBUILD
Lee left more than $12 million in debt. A liquidator's report filed with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) in April revealed that McKinna had injected $365,000 in an effort to keep the club going.
Mattiske praised McKinna's contribution.
"There is gratitude from everyone associated with the club, whether it is our fans, members, all the staff and playing group,"Mattiske said. "Lawrie has been a central figure in the club and has given his all to support the Jets. This is a change that we will have to adapt to. He has been a multi-skilled administrator.
"His contribution across the board, whether it is in business, whether it is putting us into a position now where we have young talent like Archie Goodwin coming through the club, whether it is the contribution to charity and the broader football community ... all of that is absolutely recognised and a legacy that Lawrie leaves here.
"We are comforted by the fact that he will continue to play an ambassadorial role for us moving forward. Those people skills and the connection he has to all members of our community is something that can continue. That is a real positive."
The Jets are expected to appoint Arthur Papas as coach next week.
However, McKinna's departure leaves a major hole in football nous and experience in the Jets' front office.
"With the change, we are building a new football structure," Mattiske said. "The business will have to adapt and build other roles. That is something we are addressing."
McKinna said he did not have a position to go to.
"I am looking for a new job but it doesn't have to be in football," he said
Life isn't the same without Con... but it can only improve without Tinks...
so if Lawrie has walked, will Griff stay??
Life isn't the same without Con... but it can only improve without Tinks...
Anybody heard anything about the new season? When does it start? When does the draw happen?
Someone said 30th October was mentioned in an interview with a Perth podcast
The Championship Chronicles - The Jetstream's review of the 2007/08 season. www.newcastlefootball.net/chronicles
The Championship Chronicles - The Jetstream's review of the 2007/08 season. www.newcastlefootball.net/chronicles
I like what I hear from the gaffer
New coach Arthur Papas vows to make the Newcastle Jets the A-League's fittest team
ROBERT DILLON
NEW coach Arthur Papas has vowed to transform the Newcastle Jets into a team who win games through sheer hard work.
While hopes are high that a recent spending spree will add a touch of quality and class to Newcastle's roster, Papas believes the real key to success will be hours of toil on the training pitch and in the gym.
"The first area that I always address is our work ethic, to be honest with you," Papas told the Newcastle Herald.
"We've started [pre-season] early for a reason, because we need to ingrain a certain working culture into the organisation in terms of the way we approach our football and the mentality we have.
"The first thing is we need to be the hardest-working team in the league.
"That's a non-negotiable.
"That's something we're working on already, because to play the type of football that I like to play, you need to be hard-working.
"You need to be extremely mobile, you need to be extremely aggressive and the intensity is never compromised. It's all about dominating the game and dominating as high as possible, and scoring goals."
Papas said Newcastle's first few days of training had been "very positive", although he suspected the intensity of the sessions may have been an eye-opener for his new troops.
"There's no handbrake in anything we do," he said.
"We've trained three sessions now, and at the end of today's session, I said to the players: 'That's probably the easiest three days you'll have all year'. I think they were a bit astounded by that.
"But when you want to be champions, you need to train at the top intensity every single day. We won't take our foot off the pedal."
Papas said every player "has a clean slate from day one" and all positions were up for grabs.
Newcastle's first competitive opponents will be Western United in the FFA Cup qualifying round, on the weekend of August 7-8.
The Jets have traditionally struggled in the FFA Cup but Papas left no doubt what it means to him.
"It's an opportunity to compete," Papas said.
"It's an opportunity to win something, and that's important, because you want to be successful and win things.
"With the Australian calendar, there is basically the FFA Cup and the league. Most countries have three or four competitions.
"So anything we're entered into, our aim will be to be successful and win it."
Several new signings - including New Zealand Olywhites representatives Joey Champness and Dane Ingham and Georgian striker Beka Mikeltadze - are still several weeks from arriving in Newcastle.
In addition, defender James Donachie, who was loaned out to play in India last season, is not on deck and is expected to negotiate a release.
Donachie's situation appears unlikely to leave a door ajar for veteran Nikolai Topor-Stanley, who is weighing whether to retire or find another club, at the age of 36.
https://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2021-...feud/100294318
Football was going so well...
Mind you, would anybody notice if they weren't covered by insurance? Does it actually cover you for anything???
Brillante has signed for Victory, up to his 5th A-League club now.
I will just leave this here. Let the comments flow
Cleanout continues as Newcastle Jets part company with a club legend
THE exodus at the Newcastle Jets has continued after football-operations manager Joel Griffiths was shown the door and and three more players were released.
The Jets confirmed on Friday the mutual termination of the contracts of Johnny Koutroumbis, James Donachie and Connor O'Toole.
New Jets coach Arthur Papas is intent on kicking off his tenure with a revamped roster and Koutroumbis, O'Toole and Donachie will follow former skipper Nigel Boogaard, Roy O'Donovan, Nikolai Topor-Stanley, Matthew Millar, Lachlan Jackson, Lewis Italiano, Ramy Najjarine, Luke Prso and Liridon Krasniqi out the back door.
Koutroumbis, 23, has been a regular since joining the Jets in 2016, playing in 90 A-League games, including the 2017-18 grand final.
He signed a three-year contract with Newcastle that was supposed to take him through until the end of the coming season. Instead it is understood he sought a release and is expected to join Western Sydney.
O'Toole, 24, was under contract for even longer, having signed a new two-year deal with Newcastle just four months ago.
Donachie signed a two-season with the Jets more than 12 months ago but has never actually pulled on a Newcastle jersey.
He was initially loaned out to Indian Super League club Goa, but since completing that stint indicated a reluctance to honour his deal with the Jets.
Within hours of Newcastle confirming his release, Sydney FC announced they had signed Donachie.
In addition, new recruit Cameron Devlin has attracted interest in Europe and might not be joining Newcastle.
Griffiths, the crowd-pleasing hero of Newcastle's 2007-08 championship-winning season, joined the club's administration ranks under former owner Martin Lee.
Along with chief executive Lawrie McKinna, who also parted company with the Jets recently, Griffiths was largely responsible for recruitment and helped assemble the club's 2017-18 squad that finished runners-up in the grand final.
It is understood he was bitterly disappointed when the club advised him this week that his contract would not be renewed.
"Joel has been a really valued, respected member of our staff for a long time and he will always be a legend of the club," Jets executive chairman Shane Mattiske said.
"But the fact of the matter is we needed to make changes, off the field as well as on it. We'll continue to support Joel and wish him well in his future endeavours."
While Griffiths was surplus to requirements, a new general-manager-of-football position has been created for Craig Deans, who stood down after a season as Newcastle's head coach.
Deans will be overseeing Newcastle's W-League team and academy as well as the A-League outfit.
Meanwhile, A-League expansion club Western United have signed John Aloisi as coach.
so who else has the Welchman told Lederer he needs from our squad?
Life isn't the same without Con... but it can only improve without Tinks...
So we can make room for Deans but not Griff.
I hope you’re all happy.
Middleby Gone
Lawrie Out