The former president of a football club has been handed two suspended prison sentences after stealing more than $23,000 from the club.<\/p>\n
Last year, former president Aaron Alexander was given a suspended prison sentence for stealing $23,546 from the club while in charge of its finances between September 2016 and July 2018.<\/p>\n
Since then, what Capital Football in a statement called “financial mismanagement” under a different subsequent president, means the club now owes more than $200,000 to a number of creditors, including $180,000 to ACT Sportsgrounds.<\/p>\n
In a statement on social media, the club said that when GUFC received a final notice from Capital Football earlier this month, it “became evident that the former president had exercised poor financial oversight and that the executive committee under his leadership failed to implement adequate governance controls”.<\/p>\n
“The executive committee under his leadership failed to implement adequate governance controls \u2026 This mismanagement directly contributed to the club’s deteriorating financial position and its inability to meet key obligations,” the statement said.<\/p>\n
“As a result, both the president and the executive committee were requested to stand down.<\/p>\n
“It is deeply saddening that the actions and mismanagement of a few individuals have now resulted in the displacement of over 2,000 players plus the coaches, volunteers, and families.”<\/p>\n
The club faced controversy earlier this season after threats of a player boycott in the men’s first-grade team.<\/p>\n
Just five weeks ago, the club took to social media to insist “All contracted payments are currently up to date.”<\/p>\n
Preparing for 2026 season<\/p>\n
Gungahlin United Football Club won the men’s NPL competition last year. (Facebook: Gungahlin United Football Club)<\/p>\n
GUFC had already begun preparations for the 2026 season.<\/p>\n
According to their statement, these included issuing pre-offers to players, and submitting a recovery plan to Capital Football and the ACT government, proposing improved financial management and stricter, regular financial reporting.<\/p>\n
However, Capital Football did not issue a 2026 licence for the club to play in the men’s and women’s National Premier Leagues (NPL) \u2014 the highest level competition in the ACT.<\/p>\n
“Without such a licence, it is not feasible or reasonable for the community arm of the club to bear a debt burden exceeding $200,000 while continuing normal operations,” the club’s statement said.<\/p>\n
“The interim executive determined that GUFC’s only viable future was contingent upon retaining an NPL licence.”<\/p>\n
The statement said the club was “left with little or no alternative”.<\/p>\n
However, in a statement, Capital Football said GUFC declined the opportunity to submit financial documents that could have seen the club continue with grassroots community teams and no NPL teams.<\/p>\n
That was in response to the Capital Football board issuing GUFC correspondence on October 15 about their concern that the club appeared unable to maintain operations within the NPL.<\/p>\n
Finding new clubs for budding footballers<\/p>\n
In a statement, Capital Football said it was deeply saddened by the announcement.<\/p>\n
“Capital Football regrets that financial mismanagement has led to a situation in which a club believes it can no longer continue operations,” the statement said.<\/p>\n
The statement said Capital Football’s priority was to ensure all players associated with GUFC had an opportunity to keep playing football in the ACT.<\/p>\n
The club was founded in 1963 and has held an NPL licence in the men’s and women’s competitions since 2015.<\/p>\n
The men’s team won the competition in 2019 and 2024.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Just a year after winning the competition, a community football club whose president stole more than $20,000 from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":222157,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[135049,2666,64,63,2667,135051,22129,135048,44068,11472,135050,85],"class_list":["post-222156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-aaron-alexander","tag-act","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-canberra","tag-capital-football","tag-financial-mismanagement","tag-gungahlin-united-football-club","tag-licence","tag-npl","tag-revoked","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=222156"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222156\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/222157"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=222156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=222156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=222156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}