From NRL wooden spooners to title contenders: Former Wests Tigers bosses crack a new code

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They were much maligned during their tumultuous tenure at the Wests Tigers, regularly trying to fend off wooden spoons at the embattled NRL club.

But in Newcastle you are unlikely to hear a bad word about Lee Hagipantelis and Justin Pascoe, who are part of the Jets’ A-League revival.

Former Wests Tigers CEO Justin Pascoe and chairman Lee Hagipantelis, who are now part-owners of the Newcastle Jets.

Two years ago, the future of the club appeared very gloomy when Australian Professional Leagues (APL) chairman Stephen Conroy declared the governing body could no longer afford to keep supporting it financially.

The Jets had been under interim management, bankrolled by four of their fellow club owners for more than three years after the licence was taken off Chinese billionaire Martin Lee in January 2021.

Before Lee, the club cost business tycoons Con Constantine and Nathan Tinkler tens of millions of dollars before they too were eventually stripped of their licences.

“We shouldn’t be propping up one club,” Conroy said at the time. “We don’t have the financial capacity to do this … we need to know by relatively soon whether this is going to be a club that is going to play next season or not.”

The Newcastle Jets have scored the most goals in the A-League this season.

Enter Maverick Sports Partners, a consortium that includes Hagipantelis and Pascoe, not long removed as chairman and CEO respectively of the Tigers, after a much-publicised review of the struggling NRL team in December 2023.

Hagipantelis and Pascoe say credit for the success is shared, by their fellow owners, the Jets’ administration, rookie coach Mark Milligan and his staff, and the playing squad.

The Jets not only won the Australia Cup for the first time in the pre-season, they are now flying in second position on the A-League Men’s ladder, having won their past four games.

They have scored more goals (30) than any other team and appear on track for their first finals appearance since 2017-18, when they finished runners-up after a controversial 1-0 loss to Melbourne Victory in the grand final.

Jets fans haven’t had much to celebrate in recent years.

Meanwhile, Newcastle’s women’s team is eighth in their competition, two points behind second.

All of which has come as a pleasant surprise for long-suffering Jets fans, who have had precious little to celebrate since the halcyon days of their 2007-08 championship triumph.

The Jets have won four straight games under new coach Mark Milligan.

Since the foundation years of the National Soccer League, Newcastle’s team has always struggled to remain viable, given the vast shadow cast since 1988 by the city’s rugby league flagship, the Knights.

But Pascoe said the Jets were precisely the type of opportunity he and Hagipantelis were seeking when they created their Global Sports Fund Management Group, which has also acquired a Canadian basketball franchise, Ottawa Blackjacks, and Sunshine Coast Lightning Super Netball team.

“It’s about investing into teams that are a buy-low, sell-high type scenario, as in all business,” Pascoe said.

“We’re really keen to continue to invest in, not only Newcastle, but into sport globally, and we think Newcastle, regardless of what’s happened previously, was untapped, and an opportunity that was waiting if we could get half-right.

“The other owners are all in alignment with the strategy, and the exec team have done a really good job to date, but we’re also learning every day. There’s things that we can improve on, and we’ve just got to stay true to that path, and hopefully success comes.”

Hagipantelis said the ultimate goal was not just on-field success, but to ensure the club becomes financially self-sustainable. No small task, given that since the A-League kicked off in 2005-06, the Jets have never broken even in any season.

“There is no reason why a sporting organisation such as the Jets cannot be economically viable,” Hagipantelis said.

“I mean it’s a huge market up there. As long as you provide the product, people will come out and support it.

“For example, if we increase crowd numbers from an average of 5000 to 15,000, you can imagine what that would do for the club’s financial position.

“So there’s enormous opportunity for us to develop, but it’s all going to come back to performance on the field … we’re seeing very positive signs, so there’s no reason why, being as vigilant and as strategic as we have been, we can’t turn that club around within a season or two.”

The Jets had long been considered a basket case before this season’s revival. Likewise the Tigers, who collected two of three consecutive wooden spoons with Hagipantelis and Pascoe at the helm, have been dysfunctional on the field and off it, as evidenced by the recent boardroom shambles that resulted in chief executive Shane Richardson resigning.

“Lee and I are loving what we’re doing, not only with the Jets, but with the professional basketball team that we have in Canada, and also obviously the Lightning up here on the Sunshine Coast,” Pascoe said.

“I suppose the difference is that we actually can take ownership of decisions and set the strategy and be in alignment to actually execute that strategy, whereas, at the West Tigers, that wasn’t always the case, with a board that was sometimes not in the same alignment.”

Hagipantelis said nobody will be cheering louder than he will if coach Benji Marshall can steer the Tigers into the play-offs for the first time since 2011.

“I’m a massive supporter of the West Tigers and I always will be, and I wish Benji and the team incredible success,” he said. “The issues that I had with the West Tigers were with certain individuals, some of whom have already moved on, but not with the club itself.”