Soccer: A-League task cool for Katzen

It seems somewhat ironic that Brian Katzen says his profession revolves around accumulating businesses in distress and restoring them to health.

Katzen is, among other things, the owner of the New Zealand Knights, a football club that has been in serious distress in the last 12 months. In a past life it was known as the Kingz and showed more anguish than a struggling swimmer at Piha.

As a person, however, Katzen is the antipathy of the Knights. He's calm, understated and a little shy and certainly doesn't look and act like the owner of a football club, dressed casually in jeans and sweatshirt.

Among the ventures he's nursed back to health is Swansea Football Club, which has gone from facing relegation from the Third Division to fighting for promotion to the Championship in the space of four years. They've also built a new 20,000-seat stadium and crowds have increased from 3000 to an average of 14,000.

Needless to say, it's the sort of turnaround he's wanting to achieve with the Knights.

But behind the casual exterior is a drive to succeed and the businessman within regularly comes to the surface.

"The goal for us is to push to win the league every year," Katzen said, "because we are not doing it for fun, you know. We're here to make money, otherwise I wouldn't be around."

Last year was far from fun for the London-based South African. The Knights were the laughing stock of the A-League and haemorrhaged as much as $3 million as crowds were as poor as the side's results.

But he refuses to panic - "it's not my style" - and explains he's in for the long haul. "Everything is a long ride. It takes years to get things right because in business, you have to invest for the long term, otherwise it doesn't make sense. If you want a quick fix, it's like gambling.

"[What happened] last year makes me feel even more strongly about getting it right. It makes me want to prove to myself and other people that we can make it in a rugby-mad culture."

Katzen admitted that he probably didn't take enough of an active role last year and has already become more involved this time around to get things right.

Although the current trip to New Zealand was scheduled around a visit to see his parents, who live here, he's also met with A-League boss Matt Carroll and New Zealand Soccer CEO Graham Seatter. It's also coincided with the retirement of former manager John Adshead, something Katzen said is coincidental.

Carroll has been highly critical in the past of the way the Knights have handled things and has made it obvious the club need to get things right this year or face being kicked out of the competition.

At the crux of this is a closer relationship with New Zealand Soccer and, finally, that seems to be more realistic after "positive" talks last week. These talks might even lead to the appointment of All Whites coach Ricki Herbert in some management role, as well as sponsorship partnerships.

A partnership with Portsmouth chairman Milan Mandaric has been floated as a distinct possibility after Knights scout and management hopeful Eddie Krncevic recently said: "Milan Mandaric is a good friend and I introduced him to Knights chairman Anthony Lee. There's a strong chance he will invest in the Knights."

Mention of Mandaric is the only time Katzen seems to get flustered. "You always hear names tossed around," he explained as he quickly regathered himself. "It's what the game is made of.

"Eddie knows him but he hasn't expressed interest to me to put money in. It would depend what his reasons are. You have to have a really good reason why you would want to do that."

Presumably, like Katzen, it would be about getting a business foothold in another part of the world. Katzen always dreamed of playing in the Premiership but, once he knew this was unrealistic, owning a club was another way of fulfilling his need to be involved in the game. It also gave him a business presence in the UK.

"Once you are a director of a football club, it opens a lot of doors," he explained.

It has worked for him with Swansea. It now needs to work for him at the Knights or the A-League will close the door on the club and that would be decidedly unhealthy.