Property developer Terry Serepisos' financial tribulations are a matter for him and his creditors. The fate of the Wellington Phoenix, the football club he bankrolls, is a concern to everybody with the best interests of football or Wellington at heart.

With luck and the goodwill of his creditors, Mr Serepisos may be able to salvage his empire from the ruins of the global financial crisis. With luck, he may be able to continue underwriting the Phoenix at a reported cost of between $1 million and $1.5m a year. But the fate of the club should not be left to the vagaries of the financial winds.

The Phoenix have brought pleasure to football fans, added vitality to the city and shown talented young athletes that a footballing career is as viable an option as a rugby career.

Hence it is encouraging to hear Wellington city councillor John Morrison say that five unnamed businessmen stand ready to support the Phoenix to the tune of $2m a year, should Mr Serepisos be unable to continue funding the team. However, the future of the team should be of vital interest not just to Wellingtonians but to the sport's governing body.

New Zealand Football, till recently a ramshackle organisation that lurched from debacle to disaster, has benefited hugely from the establishment of a successful, well-supported team in the nation's capital. As one of the men behind the club's creation, John Dow, wrote in The Dominion Post last week, it is no coincidence that the creation of the Phoenix coincided with the All Whites qualifying for the World Cup finals for the first time in 28 years. The team has given coach Ricki Herbert an opportunity to practise his trade weekly , and locally based players the chance to compete at a high level. Furthermore, NZ Football's empty coffers have been filled by the $10 million prize money the All Whites earned by making the World Cup finals.

However, the sport's governing body appears remarkably sanguine about Mr Serepisos' financial predicament and rumours of machinations to transfer the franchise to Auckland: "There is no active programme [to relocate the club]," NZF chairman Frank van Hattum said a few months ago.

Lest Mr van Hattum has forgotten, it should be remembered that the Phoenix only exist because of the spectacular failure of Aucklanders to support the team's predecessors in the country's most populous city. Over the past four seasons Phoenix crowds have averaged 9617. Over the previous six seasons the Auckland-based New Zealand Knights and Football Kingz averaged 3563 between them.

Lose the Phoenix and the sport will relapse into the comatose state in which it languished till passionate Wellingtonians took a hand.

No one expects football funds to be used to prop up Mr Serepisos' business interests, but there is much NZF can do to aid the Phoenix without supporting Mr Serepisos' private ventures.

It should get on with it. Without the Phoenix the future for football is as bleak as its past.