The immediate crux of the problem is Johnson's inability to communicate. It wasn't just the clumsy nature of the announcement of Voss' departure, or the bungled attempt to lure Paul Roos. The club has become insular and paranoid, protected by a media department that acts more like a firewall than a conduit to its supporter base. That base has dwindled terribly. Total membership of the club is some 24,000, probably including a few pets. Members with full voting rights tally just over 6700. That meant that, when a rival ticket led by Paul Williams and Mick Power - and backed by club icon Leigh Matthews - called for an extraordinary general meeting to break the deadlocked board, it only needed a paltry 350 signatures; 5 per cent of those members with voting rights. More than double those numbers were quickly amassed with the help of the Lion's Roar: a supporter group which has gained influence by stepping into the vacuum created by the club's radical disengagement with its own base. While it is not backing either side publicly, it has emerged as an important voice. Its leaders, James Kliemt and Adam Staines, are both smart and social-media savvy (both work as digital PR strategists). The deadline for the club to call an EGM passed a week ago, putting it in breach of its own constitution. It is now within the power of the rival ticket to call the EGM itself, but so far it has held off, with Matthews taking to Twitter in recent days to pile more pressure on Johnson and his fellow directors Linda Nash and Cameron Milner.

Matthews was responding to the club's legal advice that he was technically ineligible to join the board. Although he is a life member, he is not, as apparently required, a full member of at least two years' standing. What the club did not say was that the board has the power to alter the rights of life members at its discretion. It also did not say that the board had itself altered the constitution in an earlier attempt to appoint Matthews to the board. Matthews has since said he would never serve as a director alongside Johnson. Matthews is used to getting his own way. So, too, is Power, a construction magnate valued at around $650 million. The universal assumption was that when Matthews threw his hat in the ring with Power and Williams, Johnson would fold. That's where the AFL came in. Johnson has had the backing of CEO Andrew Demetriou, the only figure in the game willing and able to challenge a man of Matthews' stature. Demetriou has been desperate for the club to avoid an EGM, even threatening to withhold $1.2 million in promised funding to keep the club propped up. Johnson points to a number of transformative projects during his stewardship, from the establishment of a social club at Springwood, 17 kilometres south of Brisbane's CBD, to the proposed move of the club's training and administration facilities to Springfield, a satellite city 26 kilometres away.

The move to Springfield is all about money, something the club has been losing hand over fist for years. It's believed the club currently pays the Gabba around $1 million per annum in rent. At Springfield, they have a peppercorn agreement with the Springfield Land Corporation of $1 a year. There are two problems here. One is the isolation of Springfield, further removing the club from its own supporters, and forcing players and staff to move across town.The second is that the development may not happen: the former federal Labor government had, during the election campaign, promised to kick in $15 million in funding for the project. Warren Truss, the new Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Development, has cast grave doubts on the future of that funding, currently on hold. Demetriou, distracted by other matters this year, did not realise the depth of discontent at the Lions until it was too late, and the AFL has overestimated the depth of support for the code in the state. While the Gold Coast Suns have begun to make on-field strides, Brisbane has withered. Since the glory years it has had mostly low draft choices, and used them poorly. It is also the only interstate club that no longer has any kind of retention allowance, and is struggling to hold onto a number of young players - all of whom were first and second-round draft picks it gained from its recent bottoming out. It's understood that Voss, backed by captain Jonathan Brown, led an old-school, go hard or go home culture that was unsympathetic to younger players and failed to take account of different personality types.

But the club also spends far less than 100 per cent of its salary cap and has a recruiting department that cannot compete with the likes of the Cats, Magpies, Hawks and Swans, all of whom have made regeneration, rather than rebuilding, the new model for powerful and successful clubs. Whatever happens to Johnson, the Lions are a club in need of urgent intervention.

