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ARLC Commission Changes

Ray McKigney

Juniors
Messages
166
We have players of past and present on the board which is great. You'd think ARL Commission would have a bishop on the board like in politics. I'd think it'd be a real good sign from the NRL to appoint one to show that they're tackling the issue of societal degeneracy and fix the game's image. The board needs to have more diversity.

Still no women on the board? maybe in ten years time.
 

Cockadoodledoo

First Grade
Messages
5,045
What is it with rothfield and V’landys? He has been trying to get that guy in since the commission was formed.

So if this were to all eventuate Politis would have influence through both peponis, through the NSWRL board, and Gyngell, the former roosters board member. I can't see it going down like that, other clubs will see it for what it is.

Bit ironic since you support the most self serving club coached by the biggest self serving arsehole the game has ever seen. Can't remember the Roosters locking in an agreement with the NRL preventing the establishment of a new team in the same city.
 

Ray McKigney

Juniors
Messages
166
Why are we talking about expansion when we should be putting money into a women's league and possibly bring back reserves.
We should be promoting women's rugby league and trying to get a national competition running. Yet we continue to ignore and discriminate.

The reason the NRL doesn't want a women's comp is because they don't want to highlight the gender pay gap.

Forget Perth. Perth will be the new Adelaide by 2020.
 

insert.pause

First Grade
Messages
6,446
Bit ironic since you support the most self serving club coached by the biggest self serving arsehole the game has ever seen. Can't remember the Roosters locking in an agreement with the NRL preventing the establishment of a new team in the same city.
They are all the same, Politis is just the best at it.
 

El Diablo

Post Whore
Messages
94,107
http://www.smh.com.au/rugby-league/...t-leaving-a-sinking-ship-20170120-gtvksw.html

ARLC chairman John Grant hits back at critics, saying 'rats are not leaving a sinking ship'


We all sat there, just under five years ago, in the Messenger Room at League Central as a new dawn broke for rugby league.

Not only did the game have a new shiny, silvery headquarters but it also had new leaders: the independent commission the game had been craving for years, maybe even a century, that ended the unhappy post-Super League marriage between News Ltd and the ARL was finally here.


"This is without doubt an historic day for the game," said its chairman, John Grant, who was widely unknown to fans except those who recalled him playing on the wing for Queensland and Australia in the 1970s.

Fast forward to Friday morning. A combative Grant is on the phone to Fairfax Media following a week of headlines about the commission he is about to work with — but excited about the years ahead.

The NSWRL and QRL have been suspicious of each other for a hundred years or more.

On Monday, a group of powerbrokers flew to Brisbane and a deal was brokered to ensure the two leagues and now two NRL-club appointees would take their place on the board.

As those who painstakingly put the commission together in the first place immediately asked: will the QRL delegate be thinking what's best for Queensland or of the greater interests of the game whenever he votes?

Come the end of the week, current commissioners Jeremy Sutcliffe and Graeme Samuels were also gone. With Chris Sarra also indicating earlier this year that he would stand down at next month's annual general meeting, there will now be a 5-4 split between independents and those appointed by the leagues and clubs.

Within the space of a few days, the independent commission suddenly became sort of independent.

"It's been cast as rats leaving a sinking ship – that's bullshit," Grant said. "Jeremy told me in September 2015 that when he saw his broad calendar in the other director roles that he had, he would be travelling overseas for a good part of 2016 and that he should stand down. I said, we are dealing with broadcast rights and stadium [issues], and I need you to stay. Graeme has been invaluable over the last three years but his work is done. He was coming up for re-election and doesn't want to stay. He is not a footballing person and now the agenda of the commission is football."

Grant brokered a deal just before Christmas with angry NRL clubs over a backflip on a Memorandum of Understanding struck a year earlier that would see a 130 per cent increase in club funding.

Privately, some couldn't believe their luck. A guaranteed increase before the NRL had signed off on its collective bargaining agreement with the Rugby League Players Association seemed too good to be true.

When the commission tried to go back on that deal it was little wonder Club Land's most powerful figures, with as much political nous as those at Macquarie Street, worked the numbers and then held a gun to Grant's head to ensure they received what they had been promised.

Grant had been schooled in classic rugby league politics.

"I don't think it does any good for the game to launder its dirty clothing in the open air," Grant said. "The behaviour that causes people to get into that megaphone diplomacy does not work. For our part, it is unfortunate that a lot of the agenda that has been aired in the media has been around money, particularly when the commission's focus in the last five years has been about laying the foundations for the growth of this game on a sustainable basis. The important thing from now is the agenda has turned back to football and the development of the game."

Grant and the commission argue that they have made significant strides since that optimistic morning at League Central in February 2012.

New stadiums in Sydney and Townsville have been secured. On the field, the punch and shoulder charge are gone and concussion is being taken more seriously. There's an Integrity Unit: the busiest office in the game.

But, as always, the most important "foundation piece" is money and on that score Grant and the NRL clubs have widely differing views.

On one side, clubs will claim the commission is blowing money, hand over fist.

As outlined by Fairfax columnist Roy Masters on Friday: "Critics point out that the ARLC, with its eight independent directors, has been operational six years, turned over $6.5 billion in revenue, yet made a loss last year of $37 million and is anticipated to announce a $50 million loss at next month's annual meeting."

One the other hand, League Central points out that clubs, in general, cannot help themselves. Non-player expenditure across the 16 NRL franchises has gone from $30.1 million in 2011 to $93.1 million in 2015.

Translation: clubs are blindly throwing money at high-profile coaches and sports science and technology, thinking a premiership, a top-four finish or even a place in the playoffs will improve their overall financial position – or even drag them out of the mire.

The Sharks, who won the premiership last year, were ranked second-last on football department expenditure.

The NRL also claims that it has grown revenue outside the two massive broadcast paydays its received in the last five years. Since the formation of the commission, revenue has grown by an annual compound rate of 14 per cent. If the league was a top 50 ASX-listed company, that would rank it third.

"The game has been able to generate revenues that are substantially higher than they were in 2012," Grant says. "Having said that, on the commercial front, we're still half of what the AFL does so there's a lot of upscale to be done."

What the financials of rugby league don't explain is the mood of the game and its fans.

Grant bemoans the damage an off-field incident does to the image of the code, especially those who are ambivalent about their interest.

The rusted-on fans, however, see deals done with clubs just before Christmas to ensure Grant stays in his position until the end of his tenure and roll their eyes, thinking about the bad old days when blazer wearers and jock sniffers controlled the game.

Before Grant hung up the phone on Friday, he wanted to make it very clear the renewed focus of the commission would be "football".

Former Nine boss David Gyngell, former News boss John Hartigan and former ARL boss John Quayle have all been thrown up as possible commissioners – three men who understand the game as much as the politics of it.

The game should be so lucky to have them. But would they want to do it?

"That's where the focus of the commission will now move – football," Grant said. "The statement that we need more football experience on the commission is a real and true statement in the context of the next phase of the commission's agenda."
 

Hello, I'm The Doctor

First Grade
Messages
9,124
Why are we talking about expansion when we should be putting money into a women's league and possibly bring back reserves.
We should be promoting women's rugby league and trying to get a national competition running. Yet we continue to ignore and discriminate.

The reason the NRL doesn't want a women's comp is because they don't want to highlight the gender pay gap.

Forget Perth. Perth will be the new Adelaide by 2020.

Just go away, youre not even good at trolling....
 

Hello, I'm The Doctor

First Grade
Messages
9,124
http://www.smh.com.au/rugby-league/...t-leaving-a-sinking-ship-20170120-gtvksw.html

ARLC chairman John Grant hits back at critics, saying 'rats are not leaving a sinking ship'


We all sat there, just under five years ago, in the Messenger Room at League Central as a new dawn broke for rugby league.

Not only did the game have a new shiny, silvery headquarters but it also had new leaders: the independent commission the game had been craving for years, maybe even a century, that ended the unhappy post-Super League marriage between News Ltd and the ARL was finally here.


"This is without doubt an historic day for the game," said its chairman, John Grant, who was widely unknown to fans except those who recalled him playing on the wing for Queensland and Australia in the 1970s.

Fast forward to Friday morning. A combative Grant is on the phone to Fairfax Media following a week of headlines about the commission he is about to work with — but excited about the years ahead.

The NSWRL and QRL have been suspicious of each other for a hundred years or more.

On Monday, a group of powerbrokers flew to Brisbane and a deal was brokered to ensure the two leagues and now two NRL-club appointees would take their place on the board.

As those who painstakingly put the commission together in the first place immediately asked: will the QRL delegate be thinking what's best for Queensland or of the greater interests of the game whenever he votes?

Come the end of the week, current commissioners Jeremy Sutcliffe and Graeme Samuels were also gone. With Chris Sarra also indicating earlier this year that he would stand down at next month's annual general meeting, there will now be a 5-4 split between independents and those appointed by the leagues and clubs.

Within the space of a few days, the independent commission suddenly became sort of independent.

"It's been cast as rats leaving a sinking ship – that's bullshit," Grant said. "Jeremy told me in September 2015 that when he saw his broad calendar in the other director roles that he had, he would be travelling overseas for a good part of 2016 and that he should stand down. I said, we are dealing with broadcast rights and stadium [issues], and I need you to stay. Graeme has been invaluable over the last three years but his work is done. He was coming up for re-election and doesn't want to stay. He is not a footballing person and now the agenda of the commission is football."

Grant brokered a deal just before Christmas with angry NRL clubs over a backflip on a Memorandum of Understanding struck a year earlier that would see a 130 per cent increase in club funding.

Privately, some couldn't believe their luck. A guaranteed increase before the NRL had signed off on its collective bargaining agreement with the Rugby League Players Association seemed too good to be true.

When the commission tried to go back on that deal it was little wonder Club Land's most powerful figures, with as much political nous as those at Macquarie Street, worked the numbers and then held a gun to Grant's head to ensure they received what they had been promised.

Grant had been schooled in classic rugby league politics.

"I don't think it does any good for the game to launder its dirty clothing in the open air," Grant said. "The behaviour that causes people to get into that megaphone diplomacy does not work. For our part, it is unfortunate that a lot of the agenda that has been aired in the media has been around money, particularly when the commission's focus in the last five years has been about laying the foundations for the growth of this game on a sustainable basis. The important thing from now is the agenda has turned back to football and the development of the game."

Grant and the commission argue that they have made significant strides since that optimistic morning at League Central in February 2012.

New stadiums in Sydney and Townsville have been secured. On the field, the punch and shoulder charge are gone and concussion is being taken more seriously. There's an Integrity Unit: the busiest office in the game.

But, as always, the most important "foundation piece" is money and on that score Grant and the NRL clubs have widely differing views.

On one side, clubs will claim the commission is blowing money, hand over fist.

As outlined by Fairfax columnist Roy Masters on Friday: "Critics point out that the ARLC, with its eight independent directors, has been operational six years, turned over $6.5 billion in revenue, yet made a loss last year of $37 million and is anticipated to announce a $50 million loss at next month's annual meeting."

One the other hand, League Central points out that clubs, in general, cannot help themselves. Non-player expenditure across the 16 NRL franchises has gone from $30.1 million in 2011 to $93.1 million in 2015.

Translation: clubs are blindly throwing money at high-profile coaches and sports science and technology, thinking a premiership, a top-four finish or even a place in the playoffs will improve their overall financial position – or even drag them out of the mire.

The Sharks, who won the premiership last year, were ranked second-last on football department expenditure.

The NRL also claims that it has grown revenue outside the two massive broadcast paydays its received in the last five years. Since the formation of the commission, revenue has grown by an annual compound rate of 14 per cent. If the league was a top 50 ASX-listed company, that would rank it third.

"The game has been able to generate revenues that are substantially higher than they were in 2012," Grant says. "Having said that, on the commercial front, we're still half of what the AFL does so there's a lot of upscale to be done."

What the financials of rugby league don't explain is the mood of the game and its fans.

Grant bemoans the damage an off-field incident does to the image of the code, especially those who are ambivalent about their interest.

The rusted-on fans, however, see deals done with clubs just before Christmas to ensure Grant stays in his position until the end of his tenure and roll their eyes, thinking about the bad old days when blazer wearers and jock sniffers controlled the game.

Before Grant hung up the phone on Friday, he wanted to make it very clear the renewed focus of the commission would be "football".

Former Nine boss David Gyngell, former News boss John Hartigan and former ARL boss John Quayle have all been thrown up as possible commissioners – three men who understand the game as much as the politics of it.

The game should be so lucky to have them. But would they want to do it?

"That's where the focus of the commission will now move – football," Grant said. "The statement that we need more football experience on the commission is a real and true statement in the context of the next phase of the commission's agenda."

MacBeth alone in the castle and the headsmen are circling, yet he cant see how pathetic his Kingship has truly become...

It would have been nice to see him go down fighting over that CLub grant thing, at least he would have shown some stomach. It would even have been nice if he had seen the negotiation through to the end then stepped down.

But selling the game out to save your own job? Grant is just looking pathetic.

"Rats leaving a sinking ship" is a nice metaphore, but what really rounds it out is the delusional Captain trying to convince the world everything is fine (as the water rises to his knees)....
 

El Diablo

Post Whore
Messages
94,107
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/spo...c/news-story/f064e2c84ea334da376153efde64cb1e

Support wanes for former Nine boss David Gyngell to join the ARLC

  • The Australian
  • 12:00AM January 21, 2017
  • Margie McDonald

    5b319cbac8c83566afc6880a2f3f537e
    Support for former Nine Network boss David Gyngell to revitalise the Australian Rugby League Commission is waning as NRL powerbrokers feel his connections with the television network would be a bad look for the code.

Gyngell was appointed chief executive of Nine Entertainment in 2013 but resigned in 2015. However, he is still on the board of directors and because Nine holds the free-to-air broadcast rights for the NRL, he would need to resign from that position if he came on to the eight-person ARLC.

Gyngell is a passionate rugby league fan, a life member of the Sydney Roosters and a former director at the club, a role he left 10 years ago.

His name has come into conversations about of four new commissioners needed to fill upcoming vacancies on the ARLC.

Educationalist, psychologist and former Queenslander of the Year Chris Sarra is stepping down after five years in February.

This week the ARLC resignations of former AFL commissioner Graeme Samuel and CSR chairman Jeremy Sutcliffe sent shockwaves through the league establishment.

Gyngell has many supporters within the NRL fraternity because of his business connections. He is close friends with one of the game’s biggest names, Roosters chairman Nick Politis.

But his link to Nine doesn’t sit well with others in the corridors of power.

One club boss told The Weekend Australian: “It would certainly be perceived as a conflict of interest. You’ve got to consider that the biggest contributors to the game are Nine and Fox Sports (pay-television rights).”

“It’s like getting into our own family business. He (Gyngell) would need to serve a considerable amount of time away from Channel Nine before he’d be seen to be eligible.

“He’s got a passion for the game and he’s put money into the game, but whether he’s commissioner material is another story.

“I don’t think he’s even that interested, to be honest with you.”

The sport signed a $1.9 billion broadcast rights deal with Nine and Fox Sports in August and November of 2015. It kicks in from 2018-2022.

The next five-year contract would come into effect in 2023 and someone of Gyngell’s broadcast knowledge and expertise could be helpful to the commission in those negotiations.

ARLC chairman John Grant is about to deliver on his promise to review the commission’s constitution. He has asked Australian Olympic Committee president John Coates to comb through the rules, protocols, and criteria drawn up when the body was established in February 2012.

One of the issues has been how long businessmen and women, or seasoned sports administrators with NRL experience needed to be free of those connections before they became eligible to sit on the commission.

There is a groundswell of support to do away with the three-year break for former NRL club directors. But there is no strict “time away” stipulated for those with links to sponsors and partners. They just can’t be attached to any of the game’s providers.

Former News Corp Australia chairman and chief executive John Hartigan, who left the media company in 2011, would need to resign from Destination NSW if he decided he wanted to sit on the ARLC. His break with the media giant is considered long enough. He is also chairman of the Prime Media Group.

It’s been more than three years since Harvey Norman CEO Katie Page was an NRL board member, but her furnishings and electronics company is still a major commercial sponsor of the Women In League round and other activities.

Former NSWRL chief executive John Quayle, who laid many of the foundations for the NRL to be set up in 1997, is on the Newcastle board. He would need to resign to join the commission but would not have to wait three years if constitutional reform happens.

There is only one woman on the eight-member commission, Harris Farms founder Catherine Harris. Former Queensland premier Anna Bligh and former ABC deputy chairwoman Wendy McCarthy are being considered for the vacant independent positions.

The commission is likely to expand to nine members so it can retain its majority “independent” status. That’s because Grant made a deal with NRL clubs and the two state league bodies, the NSWRL and QRL, that they could have two seats each on a new-look commission by the start of the 2017 season in March.
 
Messages
14,164
http://www.smh.com.au/rugby-league/...t-leaving-a-sinking-ship-20170120-gtvksw.html

ARLC chairman John Grant hits back at critics, saying 'rats are not leaving a sinking ship'


We all sat there, just under five years ago, in the Messenger Room at League Central as a new dawn broke for rugby league.

Not only did the game have a new shiny, silvery headquarters but it also had new leaders: the independent commission the game had been craving for years, maybe even a century, that ended the unhappy post-Super League marriage between News Ltd and the ARL was finally here.


"This is without doubt an historic day for the game," said its chairman, John Grant, who was widely unknown to fans except those who recalled him playing on the wing for Queensland and Australia in the 1970s.

Fast forward to Friday morning. A combative Grant is on the phone to Fairfax Media following a week of headlines about the commission he is about to work with — but excited about the years ahead.

The NSWRL and QRL have been suspicious of each other for a hundred years or more.

On Monday, a group of powerbrokers flew to Brisbane and a deal was brokered to ensure the two leagues and now two NRL-club appointees would take their place on the board.

As those who painstakingly put the commission together in the first place immediately asked: will the QRL delegate be thinking what's best for Queensland or of the greater interests of the game whenever he votes?

Come the end of the week, current commissioners Jeremy Sutcliffe and Graeme Samuels were also gone. With Chris Sarra also indicating earlier this year that he would stand down at next month's annual general meeting, there will now be a 5-4 split between independents and those appointed by the leagues and clubs.

Within the space of a few days, the independent commission suddenly became sort of independent.

"It's been cast as rats leaving a sinking ship – that's bullshit," Grant said. "Jeremy told me in September 2015 that when he saw his broad calendar in the other director roles that he had, he would be travelling overseas for a good part of 2016 and that he should stand down. I said, we are dealing with broadcast rights and stadium [issues], and I need you to stay. Graeme has been invaluable over the last three years but his work is done. He was coming up for re-election and doesn't want to stay. He is not a footballing person and now the agenda of the commission is football."

Grant brokered a deal just before Christmas with angry NRL clubs over a backflip on a Memorandum of Understanding struck a year earlier that would see a 130 per cent increase in club funding.

Privately, some couldn't believe their luck. A guaranteed increase before the NRL had signed off on its collective bargaining agreement with the Rugby League Players Association seemed too good to be true.

When the commission tried to go back on that deal it was little wonder Club Land's most powerful figures, with as much political nous as those at Macquarie Street, worked the numbers and then held a gun to Grant's head to ensure they received what they had been promised.

Grant had been schooled in classic rugby league politics.

"I don't think it does any good for the game to launder its dirty clothing in the open air," Grant said. "The behaviour that causes people to get into that megaphone diplomacy does not work. For our part, it is unfortunate that a lot of the agenda that has been aired in the media has been around money, particularly when the commission's focus in the last five years has been about laying the foundations for the growth of this game on a sustainable basis. The important thing from now is the agenda has turned back to football and the development of the game."

Grant and the commission argue that they have made significant strides since that optimistic morning at League Central in February 2012.

New stadiums in Sydney and Townsville have been secured. On the field, the punch and shoulder charge are gone and concussion is being taken more seriously. There's an Integrity Unit: the busiest office in the game.

But, as always, the most important "foundation piece" is money and on that score Grant and the NRL clubs have widely differing views.

On one side, clubs will claim the commission is blowing money, hand over fist.

As outlined by Fairfax columnist Roy Masters on Friday: "Critics point out that the ARLC, with its eight independent directors, has been operational six years, turned over $6.5 billion in revenue, yet made a loss last year of $37 million and is anticipated to announce a $50 million loss at next month's annual meeting."

One the other hand, League Central points out that clubs, in general, cannot help themselves. Non-player expenditure across the 16 NRL franchises has gone from $30.1 million in 2011 to $93.1 million in 2015.

Translation: clubs are blindly throwing money at high-profile coaches and sports science and technology, thinking a premiership, a top-four finish or even a place in the playoffs will improve their overall financial position – or even drag them out of the mire.

The Sharks, who won the premiership last year, were ranked second-last on football department expenditure.

The NRL also claims that it has grown revenue outside the two massive broadcast paydays its received in the last five years. Since the formation of the commission, revenue has grown by an annual compound rate of 14 per cent. If the league was a top 50 ASX-listed company, that would rank it third.

"The game has been able to generate revenues that are substantially higher than they were in 2012," Grant says. "Having said that, on the commercial front, we're still half of what the AFL does so there's a lot of upscale to be done."

What the financials of rugby league don't explain is the mood of the game and its fans.

Grant bemoans the damage an off-field incident does to the image of the code, especially those who are ambivalent about their interest.

The rusted-on fans, however, see deals done with clubs just before Christmas to ensure Grant stays in his position until the end of his tenure and roll their eyes, thinking about the bad old days when blazer wearers and jock sniffers controlled the game.

Before Grant hung up the phone on Friday, he wanted to make it very clear the renewed focus of the commission would be "football".

Former Nine boss David Gyngell, former News boss John Hartigan and former ARL boss John Quayle have all been thrown up as possible commissioners – three men who understand the game as much as the politics of it.

The game should be so lucky to have them. But would they want to do it?

"That's where the focus of the commission will now move – football," Grant said. "The statement that we need more football experience on the commission is a real and true statement in the context of the next phase of the commission's agenda."
You could give clubs $100 million a year and some would still make a loss.
That they are going to give clubs extra money at the expense of grassroots football is criminal in my mind
 

Perth Red

Post Whore
Messages
65,405
I don't mind the amount they are talking about tomclubs, around 45% of revenue to run the nrl comp and pay clubs seems a fair amount. It's what the other 55% is disappearing to that is the issue
 
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insert.pause

First Grade
Messages
6,446
Talks have stalled and process is now on hold after stakeholders couldn't agree on constitution changes. Gee, who could have seen this coming... there's a reason we ended up with the commission we have now.
 

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