{"id":371711,"date":"2024-02-29T20:08:14","date_gmt":"2024-02-29T21:08:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=371711"},"modified":"2024-02-29T23:06:02","modified_gmt":"2024-02-29T23:06:02","slug":"late-geelong-legend-pledges-millions-to-club","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=371711","title":{"rendered":"Late Geelong legend pledges millions to club"},"content":{"rendered":"

The family of late legendary Geelong president Frank Costa, who died in May 2021<\/a>, has pledged a whopping $10 million to the football club he loved and contributed so much to.<\/p>\n

His widow, Shirley Costa, confirmed the extraordinary monetary promise at a Geelong<\/a> function last week.<\/p>\n

The generous donation from the man who gave his entire life to not only the Cats, but the broader Geelong community, will likely be used to fund the club's planned indoor training facility.\ufeff<\/p>\n

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Costa took over as Cats president in 1999 when the club was on its knees. Alongside CEO Brian Cook, he led Geelong out of a poor financial state and transformed it into one of the greatest clubs of the modern era.<\/p>\n

The late Geelong legend was a key reason the Cats were able to win the 2007 and 2009 premierships, before he stood down from his role at the top in 2010.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

A year later, Geelong won its third flag in five years.\ufeff<\/p>\n

Costa's contribution to the Cats, who before his arrival had not won a premiership since 1963, was monumental and changed the trajectory of the entire town of Geelong.<\/p>\n

His death in 2021 came after a long battle with illness, with tributes flowing across Victoria at the time.<\/p>\n

"It's hard to remember how badly off that club was when he first took hold of it," leading footy reporter Damian Barrett said on The Sunday Footy Show<\/em> in 2021.<\/p>\n

"Getting Brian Cook in was as crucial as anything he did.<\/p>\n

\"Frank<\/p>\n

"He brought the whole town together in a way that had not been done.\ufeff"<\/p>\n

Costa was honoured with a state memorial service that was held at Kardinia Park in front of thousands.<\/p>\n

In 2023, the city of Geelong honoured Costa by erecting \ufeffa statue in the city centre, depicting him as a young local paper boy<\/a>, his first ever job.<\/p>\n

Geelong will host St Kilda in round one on Saturday, March 16 as the Cats unveil their new Selwood Stand, named after four-time premiership star Joel Selwood<\/a>, increasing the capacity of GMHBA stadium to just over 40,000.\ufeff<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The family of late legendary Geelong president Frank Costa, who died in May 2021, has pledged a whopping $10 million to the football club he […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":371713,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371711"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=371711"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371711\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":371716,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371711\/revisions\/371716"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/371713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=371711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=371711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=371711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}