Rodney Eade's Gold Coast sponsorship was threatened when reports persisted that the Karmichael Hunt cocaine controversy would involve other Suns players.
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The petroleum company United Oil delayed signing a new deal that will lead to it becoming the club's new coach sponsor until it was satisfied no other past or present Gold Coast players would be charged.
The deal is expected to be announced in the coming weeks after Queensland's Crime and Corruption Commission eight days ago revealed no further charges were expected under its current investigation.
Gold Coast chief executive Andrew Travis confirmed the club had "one potential nervous sponsor which are now very comfortable with becoming partners". Travis said the Suns had found themselves in unfamiliar territory as "there was definitely a keenness to bring the AFL into the discussion".
Hunt was this week charged $2500 for four counts of cocaine possession, stripped of the Queensland Reds vice-captaincy, suspended for six weeks and fined a further $30,000 by the Reds and the Australian Rugby Union.
Hunt was one of the AFL's highest-paid players, with an AFL-subsidised ambassadorial multimillion-dollar wage in the Gold Coast's first four years. Travis said club chairman John Witheriff had "reached out" to Hunt. He said that the club's list manager and Hunt's recruiter Scott Clayton had spoken on several occasions with Hunt's manager and that Clayton planned to meet Hunt in the coming weeks. "There's a lot of care there for him," he said. "When the [crime commission] statement came out on Friday, it was an earlier pleasant surprise for us because we were expecting an announcement this week.
"But I think they saw the impact the reports and rumours were having on families and the brands that were being damaged and I think they recognised it was important to clarify the situation.
"We were trying to establish the facts while also keen to announce a few sponsorships." Travis said it was too early to assess the impact of the drug reports and the Hunt charges on the club as it entered its fifth year in the tough Gold Coast market.
"Certainly in Melbourne our brand has been seen in a very different light than it has been previously, but whether the impact is longer term, I don't know," he said.
Travis said he had retained all the local newspaper front pages involving the Gold Coast Titans and the Queensland Reds to serve as a cautionary reminder for his club.
"But it doesn't change anything about what we do in this area. We believe our educational programs are already very good."
