Nick Becker: Auckland FC CEO ahead of the first semifinal clash against the Melbourne Victory

Auckland FC are heading across the ditch for the first leg of the A-League semifinal. 

They’re facing off against the Melbourne Victory at Melbourne's AAMI Park on Saturday, before returning home to Mt Smart for the second leg.  

CEO Nick Becker told Ryan Bridge they want to go in there tomorrow night and lay down their intentions. 

He says the team won’t take anything for granted. 

LISTEN ABOVE 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Imagine there'll be a few planes full of Keywi's, particularly
Auckland is Dappa is heading over to Melbourne this week
in Auckland see the semi final clash against Melbourne Victory
on Saturday. Simmis are played over two legs, so you
have an away game and then we will have a
home game. The team that scores the most goals across
both matches will move on to the grand final that's

(00:20):
coming at the end of May. Auckland FC CEO Nick
Becker with me this morning. Nick, Good morning, morning, right,
how you doing really good? Thank you? You must be
feeling pretty good about yourself right now. Tell us how
important this first league is because it's two legs you've
got to get through.

Speaker 2 (00:34):
Right, Yeah, absolutely, so, Yeah, we're away first and then
and finishing first. Then we should have a home semi
final on the second leg. But you know, we want
to go go there and tomorrow night and really kind
of like lay down our intentions. You know, the boys
aren't going to take anything for granted, I don't want
to speak too many sporting cliches, but they know that

(00:56):
they've kind of they've kind of you know, beaten Victory
last time. That we met them, they know what they do.
We did it there at Abay Park, so they're going
to go in with a bit of confidence there and
hopefully but if muscle memory reminds them of how to
win there, and you know, if we get at least
a draw or preferably a win, we'll be in a
good position for the following week when we're at home.

Speaker 1 (01:16):
How do you get a group of people to come
together and perform like this in such a short space
of time.

Speaker 2 (01:23):
I think this comes very much from our ownership group.
You know, sort of right at the start, we sat
down myself, Triment for the football director and Steve coach
and a coach and talked about, you know, the type
of players that we wanted to time to foot we
wanted to play. But Bill was really clear with us
and he sort of said, you know, like obviously get
the right technically the right players, and make sure that

(01:44):
they are good humans. I think that's a really good
point to how we've managed to build up a good
culture in the dressing room. We've we've managed to get
players who they go out and play for each other
rather than there's no real sort of individuals, there's no egos,
in the dressing room. So there's this really great team
spirit and it just comes out the fact that they're
all good humans, right, and we've been We've been really
lucky in that sense, and I think, you know, we

(02:06):
intentionally went out to get good people and we've been
really lucky and getting a bunch of preig guys.

Speaker 1 (02:12):
Some people, and I want to emphasize some, but some
on social media have been complaining in the past week
about the ticket prices. This is for the second League
obviously at go Media Stadium at double twenty seven dollars
fifty to forty five dollars upward. I'm assuming the league
is taking a cut here, are they?

Speaker 2 (02:29):
Yeah, they're taking one hundred percent cut, right. So yeah,
So how the A League works is once you get
to the final stage, and this is an ideal for us,
the league actually take control of the game so they
they can control of the ticket price. I mean, they
didn't consult with us, and their position was that they
wanted to keep it. Our requests to keep it at

(02:51):
go Media. They supported us on this and they and
I think they set their ticket prices prices accordingly. We
didn't have any real importance into what they could charge
of them and sort of saying, look, you know, don't
go crazy with it. I appreciate it from a fans
point of view, they are more expensive than your regular season.
I guess the league's position on it is, it's a

(03:12):
big game, it's a semi final, it's a knockout match,
and you know they I guess they believe in and
they're rightly so that the tickets have been flying off
the shower. So we've already sold well over twenty thousands,
and I imagine that the whole stadium will be sold
out by probably the end of this weekend. So I
guess they got that bit right. But yeah, I hear

(03:32):
and I conceive both sides of the stories.

Speaker 1 (03:35):
Yeah I can. Having seen some of those fans up
close and personal, I don't think you have any trouble
filling out the stadium. Nick, thank you very much and
best luck for this weekend.

Speaker 2 (03:43):
Thanks very I appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (03:45):
It's Nick Becker. He's the AUK from their c' ceo.
The semi final clash in Melbourne on Saturday. Very cool.
I mean, how do they how did they do it?
The number of records they've broken in one season and
to take out the regular seas and they're on their
way to Gloria surely. For more from Early Edition with

(04:05):
Ryan Bridge, listen live to News Talks it'd be from
five am weekdays, or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio