page_title: Fitzroy Bulldogs
section_title: Footscray's decline
hierarchical_section_title: Fitzroy Bulldogs / Footscray's decline
caption_attribution_description: The Whitten Oval, the Western Bulldogs' administrative and training headquarters.
context_page_description: The Fitzroy Bulldogs was a proposed Australian rules football club which was to have formed from the merger between the Fitzroy Lions and the Footscray Bulldogs, and was to have competed in the Victorian Football League from 1990. The merger was arranged in October 1989 to avert the imminent financial collapse of the Footscray Football Club, but was abandoned within three weeks of its announcement, after Footscray supporters raised almost two million dollars and secured sponsorship and funding to ensure their club's solvency and viability into the future.
context_section_description: The Footscray Football Club had been in financial trouble throughout the 1980s; it had faced pressure to stay afloat, and had investigated options including relocation to Brisbane as early as 1982. By 1989, its financial position was terminal. The club was more than $2,000,000 in debt, and was forecast to post a $800,000 operating loss in 1989. The club's location in Melbourne's working class inner western suburbs and the poor quality of facilities at its home ground at the Western Oval were hindering its ability to gain corporate support; in fact, the ground's grandstand had been declared a fire hazard in 1988, and the club was already facing pressure to play its games elsewhere. A couple of decades of generally mediocre on-field performances were also contributing to declining attendances, and finishing second-last on the ladder in 1989 had accelerated the decline.
  The VFL had been concerned about Footscray's financial position throughout the year, and required that the club prove its ongoing viability to hold its place in the league; it was widely recognised that the club needed a big off-field change to survive. The Footscray Council had offered the club a package worth more than $1,600,000, which included a $600,000 direct cash injection, $400,000 to upgrade facilities at Western Oval, and its assistance to secure $600,000 in sponsorships; but the league rejected this as another temporary solution which failed to address the root cause of its problems.
  Seeing few other options, Footscray president Nick Columb, who had been involved with the club for about ten years but had been elected president only in March 1989, began negotiations for a merger. He had approached all of the league's struggling clubs, eliciting some interest from St Kilda and no interest from North Melbourne and Richmond, but it was discussions with the Fitzroy Football Club which provided the strongest case. 
  Although Fitzroy's financial position had improved since it almost relocated in 1987, its position was still weak, with around $600,000 of debts, and while its immediate solvency was secure, its long-term viability was not, so Fitzroy president Leon Wiegard was willing to merge. The clubs and the VFL executive, under CEO Ross Oakley, agreed to terms for a merger, and the merger plan was announced to the public on 3 October 1989, three days after the 1989 Grand Final; Footscray's licence to compete in the VFL was terminated the same day. The negotiations were carried out secretly, and it was not until the plans were leaked on 2 October by former Footscray general manager Dennis Galimberti, who learned of the plans at the club's best and fairest dinner and later became prominent in the campaign against the merger, that the merger became public knowledge.
  It is believed that if had the merger not been announced, the VFL would have appointed an administrator within the week to wind up Footscray's financial affairs, and the club would have folded.
caption: Footscray's off-field position in the 1980s was hindered by deteriorating facilities at the Western Oval.
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