THE AFL was bluffing with its threat of introducing a 17th team on the Gold Coast and threatening the Kangaroos with financial disaster in its rude haste to push the team to Queensland, according to one of the club's two key shareholders.

Peter De Rauch, who with Bob Ansett forms the majority shareholding that will determine the fate of the embattled club, said the AFL was attempting to bully the Kangaroos into death by another name with the demand to decide on moving to the Gold Coast within 30 days.

De Rauch, who was voted off the board last year but remains an influential powerbroker by virtue of his significant shareholding, applauded the Kangaroo board's courage yesterday in refusing to be cowed. "All I am saying is we want our dignity back. Give us two years to make a proper go of it," De Rauch said.

"OK, play those eight games up at the Gold Coast but get paid for it. OK, if we don't get the special dividends then it's up to us to unite our members, run the club properly, commercially and get out there and make our club better and get up there to the top. And, in two years if we can turn it around, then we say fine — if we have not done it then, we will never do it."

De Rauch said he had not spoken to Ansett, who is also a supporter of remaining in Melbourne. De Rauch has said he would put more money into the club but would not say how much.

He was untroubled by the prospect of the AFL withdrawing its financial commitments to the club and rendering his shares worthless and the club insolvent.

"I could sell my shares to the AFL tomorrow but I don't want to, I am a North Melbourne supporter who wants to stay in Melbourne and that is where my vote's going," De Rauch said. "My shares might become worthless if the AFL pulls their commitment but I am willing to risk that.

"It is the North supporters … that is what the passion is about. It is not the money, it has never been about the money."

The Kangaroos board is believed to be deeply divided, but yesterday advised the AFL it needed more time to make a decision many in the club believe would effectively kill it in Melbourne. "I don't think the AFL expected the board to say no to them today, I think they were expecting an easy ride," De Rauch said.

"I think Andrew (Demetriou) was surprised and him saying (the AFL would introduce a) 17th club that is a bluff, that is just not practical. I don't think the other clubs will allow it either because that means they get smaller dividends, less of everything.

"What is the hurry? The stadium up there is not built. Why not give the Kangaroos a real and practical opportunity to survive?"

De Rauch said he was content for the club to continue to play up to half its home games in Queensland as long as it remained a Melbourne-based club.

"We are quite happy to play four or so home games a year on the Gold Coast and to come up with an agreement that is almost the same as the AFL's except we are Melbourne-based," he said.

"What we are pushing is the club to remain Melbourne-based — that is the only real difference between the AFL's proposal and ours."

The report by sports management consultant Gemba into the viability of the club remaining in Melbourne assessed it across a host of benchmarks and found the Kangaroos to be languishing.

It did not say it was not viable to remain in Melbourne but stated that for it do so, it would need to aggressively improve revenue across a range of streams.

It queried whether the Kangaroos could find another 5000 members, given they have among the highest conversion of supporters to members in the AFL but also the highest churn rate of all AFL memberships.