Adelaide United Chairman, Piet van der Pol, unveiled the return of Aurelio Vidmar as Director of Football and Nathan Kosmina as Chief Executive Officer on a permanent basis on the Club’s 15-year Anniversary.
Read what each had to say from Wednesday’s major announcements below.
Piet on Aurelio’s return to the Club…
I’ve known Aurelio for about eight to nine years now. One of my first times coming to Adelaide I met him in his role of being the Head Coach of the Club. And ever since we’ve caught up many times talking about football, sharing ideas and thoughts about the development of the sport in Australia, in Asia and around the world. Because Aurelio is experienced as a player and as a coach, locally, nationally and internationally I think he is the best possible person to fill this role for Adelaide United Football Club.
It’s also a new role, a role that suits our philosophy to further develop and expand the Football Department of the Club, to develop the football philosophy, the football strategy. And to further professionalise the Club and expand on the youth academy which is something we’re looking at doing between now and the next couple of years.
Piet detailing some of Vidmar’s responsibilities in the role…
It will not be a coaching role. He’ll be working as the leader of the Football Department so he’ll be working closely together with Marco. In what we do to prepare for games, what we do for scouting, and what we do for anything else to facilitate the first team and all the other teams at the Club.
Piet confirming Ante Kovacevic will remain in the Football Department…
Ante is also part of the Football Department and will stay in that role but we’ll evaluate the set-up of the Football Department in the next couple of months.
But we want to expand the Football Department and not replace people.
Piet on Kosmina becoming the Club’s CEO on a permanent basis…
Ever since having purchased this Club in March, I’ve been extremely impressed with Nathan’s understanding of the football industry, the amount of work, his dedication and commitment to Adelaide United. He’s shown great leadership since being in his role and I do not know of any more suitable candidate to lead this Club into the future together with Aurelio.
Aurelio on coming back to the Reds…
It means a lot, it’s been a massive part of my playing and coaching career. It’s probably a perfect setting on the 15th Anniversary that I’m back so very pleased. It’s obviously going to be a big challenge but nothing that hasn’t been thrown my way in the past so really looking forward to it and really looking forward to working with the staff. And let’s bring this Club back to the heights it was in the past and if not even higher.
Aurelio on what his role entails…
Basically it’s the day-to-day running of the Football Department and as Piet said there’s an array of topics when you’re a football director. Making sure that we have strong teams from the men’s right through to the women’s team also with the junior teams, there’s some initiatives that Piet mentioned about organising the youth academy. Which is something we want to implement from the next 12 months to three years.
And working very closely with the coaches and the players, those things just don’t stop everyday, there’s always something new coming up.
What’s important is that we have good communication not just between ourselves but also between the football community and I think that’s extremely important because we’re here all for the same reason.
We want the game to strive to be better and we also want the grassroots level to become part of that success as well. So we need to continue to strengthen those relationships with all the stakeholders and that’s extremely important going forward.
Kosmina on accepting the CEO job permanently…
It formalises what I’ve been acting in in the last 12 months. It’s a proud moment, I’ve essentially been a supporter of Adelaide United for 15 years today and obviously got some family ties to the place. But it’s a real optimistic time to be involved with the Club. There’s obviously been a lot of change. I think from an on-field perspective we had a strong season last year and we’re building on that at the moment. The focus is really for me stabilising and ensuring long-term growth off the field to allow Viddie, Marco and Piet to make the necessary improvements on the field, so I’m optimistic and excited.
Kosmina on some of the Club’s off-field objectives…
For any professional Club particularly in the A-League you need to provide a financial base and a community engagement base that allows for growth. So those growth avenues commercially is with sponsors and commercial partners, and community wise, we’ve got a really strong football culture in SA as we all know. There’s a strong participation base here and it’s about engaging with the 30-odd thousand registered players in SA to get them buying into the Club and what we’re doing and ultimately get them coming to games so Coopers Stadium is full every week.
