Soccer: Confident words, quick actions as new Kingz owner gets cracking

By TERRY MADDAFORD

Football Kingz backer Brian Katzen is wasting neither time nor words as he prepares to launch the Auckland club into the revamped Australian NSL.

London-based Katzen intends to have the club's coach in place sooner rather than later. Player recruitment has started.

"We have a couple of people [coaches] in mind," Katzen said from England yesterday.

"At this stage the preference is for an Australian or New Zealander - coaches who know and understand the market and the players.

"Within a month we hope to have someone nailed down."

And all this before the licences for the new league - with a planned October/November start date - have been issued.

Katzen is confident, talking the talk in ensuring "his" club leave nothing to chance in chasing their place in the competition.

While he is unlikely to be in New Zealand in the next two or three months, Katzen will continue to pull the strings from afar, but with hands-on support from his colleague South African Guy Hedderwick, who is already here.

"He is not leaving until he has got things sorted out, especially on the sponsorship and marketing front," Katzen said.

He was delighted with the Kingz' 2-1 win over Wollongong Wolves on Monday night - the first away victory this season and one that ended a 10-game unbeaten run for Wollongong.

Katzen said the Kingz position in the league, with the playoffs now a forlorn hope, meant it was unlikely the promised one or two players from English club Chelsea would eventuate.

"I'm in the process of trying to set up a meeting with Chelsea's new chief executive, with the idea of an exchange still very much at the top of my wish list," Katzen said.

"It is our intention to have one or two players from Chelsea on the Kingz' books in the future."

Katzen is in no hurry to name names in the players' stakes, but he did hint strongly that recent recruits Danny Hay and Noah Hickey - both former internationals - were in for the long haul with the Kingz.

"Apart from them, we will be starting with a blank sheet of paper on June 30 when players for the new season will be signed.

"That recruitment will follow the appointment of the manager [coach], who will be fully accountable."

Katzen says the decision by Hay and Hickey to sign is likely to attract European-based Australian or New Zealand players to the club.

"Some players over here have already taken notice of what Danny and Noah have done, and are thinking there must be something good there for them to sign long-term contracts with a struggling club."

Katzen has welcomed the support from New Zealand Soccer in backing the Kingz and their bid for the Fifa approval they will require to play in the new league.

"We want that link between the club and the national body - which is unique in world football - to continue," Katzen said.

"This whole thing will not happen overnight. It makes sense for us all to work together.

"We don't want to do things too quickly. It has been a tough situation for the Kingz over the past five years. Now, we have to get it right. There will be no second chance if we don't."