ROAR managing director Mark Kingsman has blamed the timeslot and Adelaide United’s alleged lack of drawing power for the disappointing attendance at the club’s first home game of the A-League season.

Just 11,178 people watched at Suncorp Stadium as the Roar continued their ordinary start to the campaign with a 2-1 loss to the Reds last Friday night.

The attendance, which would have been lower if not for more than 2500 free tickets being offered to a host of local clubs, was down on last season’s regular season home crowd average of 13,892.

Kingsman admitted the club had to “work through” the problem to help ensure a bigger crowd on Sunday when the Roar are again at Suncorp Stadium against the visiting Newcastle Jets.

“It’s a concern … (but) Sunday’s going to be better for us,” Kingsman said.

“The (6.50pm) kick-off time is never easy on a Friday and no disrespect to Adelaide but if we would have had a Melbourne Victory or a Sydney, we would have had a bigger number there.”

The Roar’s first home game last season was against the Victory with a crowd of 15,805 in attendance.

Despite Kingsman’s belief that matches against Adelaide aren’t as attractive, a crowd of 15,605 watched the Roar thrash the Reds 4-0 at Suncorp Stadium in December last year.

Crowd numbers aside, Kingsman said people were “fabricating drama” when it came to the Roar’s off-field financial matters.

A perceived lack of resources and spending by the club’s owners, Indonesian conglomerate the Bakrie Group, have been touted as reasons for Brisbane’s successive losses to start the season.

However, Kingsman said that while some creditors, including former Roar player Tommy Oar’s agent Michael Jansen, were still owed money, player and staff payments were up to date.

“Every business has creditors. We’re currently $1.4 million better off than we were this time last year in terms of money that’s owed,” he said.

Kingsman said criticism of the Roar’s Ballymore training surface was unjustified.

“They complain about the pitch being hard at times, but we live in Queensland and we’ve had no rain at all until recently,” he said.

“Our performances haven’t been fantastic and then we want to blame it on everything else.”

Kingsman claimed that the Roar had received “everything they had asked for” from the Bakrie Group for the past 14 months.

“The Bakrie Group has transferred in excess of $1.5 million so far this financial year. They’ve approved the budget and are sending money over according to that budget.”

Kingsman defended his decision to refuse a request from Roar coach John Aloisi for the team to stay in Victoria the night before a pre-season trial against the Victory in Ballarat.

“Am I going to spend another $15,000 so they can stay the night before? No … and it wouldn’t make any difference whether we were in Melbourne City’s situation or Brisbane Roar’s situation,” he said.