THE BRISBANE Lions boardroom war continues to ruffle feathers, with former Fitzroy director Henry Pinskier establishing a membership group calling for change.
Pinskier has overseen the formation of 'Restore the Lions’ Pride' and is calling for a fresh start.
The group has sent emails to Lions supporters, ex-players and members, calling for expressions of interest to join the board of directors.
The Lions responded late on Monday by announcing they were investigating how the group acquired members' email addresses, saying some members had contacted the club to express privacy concerns.
Pinskier said if the current warring factions could not resolve their differences, it was time for the members to have a say.
It is yet another example of the desperation in the Lions community to see a resolution of the ongoing split.
"Nobody's blameless in this scenario and I think the members are entitled to have a view about all the directors, not just two or three," Pinskier said.
"Over last few weeks it's been a spectacle of a board at war and prompted a lot of people to speak to me and say 'Enough's enough'. It's a very serious scenario."
Pinskier and his group have outlined a four-point plan they would like voted on at an Extraordinary General Meeting.
- The club's constitution immediately changed to allow club icon Leigh Matthews to be voted on to the board.
- All directors' positions to be voted on, including Mick Power and Paul Williams, who currently join Matthews on a ticket opposing current chairman Angus Johnson.
- The return of the triple-premiership Lion logo to the guernsey
- Finally, for the club to guarantee a minimum spend – in the vicinity of 80 per cent of the club's budget - on the football department.
Pinskier was on the Fitzroy board from 1991-1993, is trained in medicine and today works as a company director with extensive board experience on public companies, community groups and on statutory bodies.
He said it was a statutory obligation of the current board to call an EGM after more than 800 members demanded so via written letters in September.
The Power-Williams-Matthews ticket tabled six points in demanding the EGM but the deadline passed on October 4.
Another spanner was thrown into the mix last week when life member Matthews was ruled ineligible to join the club's board because he was not a full member.
This means at least one of the opposing ticket's six resolutions fell through.
Pinskier said Restore the Lions' Pride's four points could be included by the board at an EGM, or they would simply raise them at December's Annual General Meeting.
"Our firm desire is to see the board resolve its differences," Pinskier said.
"That's what our preference is and if this is a mechanism to force that to happen, we'll be all the more delighted.
"But if the board wants to persist on this blame game and want to fight amongst themselves, we'll have to move down another path.
"The Lions have been unbelievable contributors to the success of this competition over many, many years, but look at what we're doing to ourselves at the moment.
"Who's to say if one group triumphs over another that this is all going to end? If they can't sort it out amongst themselves, in our view, there needs to be a clean-out."
