East Fremantle Football Club chief executive Adrian Bromage is confident good times will return to Moss Street.
East Fremantle Football Club chief executive Adrian Bromage is confident good times will return to Moss Street.
Mr Bromage, a Sandover and Simpson medalist who played 50 games for the Sharks between 1996 and 1998, was initially appointed as football operations manager in September – following the departure of Brad Dodd to the Perth Football Club.
However, a short time later, chief executive Addy Wetzler and the Sharks board agreed mutually to part ways, an opportunity presented itself for Mr Bromage to become CEO and help the club emerge from a challenging off-field period.
“The intention was to get back into project management,” he said.
“And in those first three or four months that we were here, it was really about us getting our affairs in order from when we left in Victoria – and setting out my wife’s business up, who is in property refurbishments and hotel management.
“It got set up and then the club reached out. It was about the same time I was chatting to them when “Doddy” decided to pull the pin and go over to Perth.
“To get back in the footy department… it was a really nice time to get myself established back with the playing group.
“And then when the opportunity came, I started to speak to the board about the opportunity take on the CEO role – that’s probably more suited to my skillset to be honest.”
Now that the Sharks are back at their home ground, Mr Bromage said the club would be able to embrace traditional income streams – including bar, catering and functions – which were not always accessible during their three-year development hiatus from East Fremantle Oval.
“Revenue creation is the key for this club,” he said.
“We lost a lot of those drivers. And its really interesting when you analyse our results, we have incurred some losses over the last few years.
“We’ve eaten into our future fund to stay viable and sustainable.
“And the things have been pretty close to the edge here. Without major assets, and the only asset the footy club owned – at that stage was the bricks and mortar. Not the lease of the facility.
“So being away from home, we lost that leverage around advertising and honouring our partners and sponsors.
“What we would have as really strong revenue traditionally at the East Fremantle Footy Club dropped down to rock bottom of revenue across the West Australian Football League.
“We’re now back at our own facility. Our maintenance and costs around maintaining the building and oval have now diminished.
“We have a peppercorn rent on a state-of-the-art facility, so it’s a matter of now how we embrace that and make it work for us.”
Mr Bromage said the club had also created a profit-sharing arrangement with Belgravia Leisure and the Town of East Fremantle at its facility.
The Sharks open their 2025 campaign at home in Round 1 against the West Coast Eagles reserves on April 5, although the club is taking steps to make sure gameday operations run smoothly prior to opener.
“We’ll have a few trials because we’ve got a few pre-season games at home as well,” Mr Bromage said.
“But that first game against the Eagles is a critical one for us. And we actually requested it that way – because what’s going to happen is it will be the league, WAFLW and Rogers Cup.
“So only three games on the day but it’ll give us an opportunity to experience a gameday which is unlike any other.”
East Fremantle's annual report and financial statements from last season are expected to be released publicly soon.
