Ruling the roost
October 4, 2003
The east is home not just to the world's best football club, but also to rugby league's most powerful men. Roy Masters reports.
Almost anyone in a position of strength in rugby league supports the Roosters, lives in the eastern suburbs, or both. The mission of Penrith, their opponents in tomorrow night's grand final, is to be the No.1 rugby league club in the world. But the Roosters are already the most powerful.
On and off the field, the Roosters are the most potent national football club, even eclipsing Australian Football League premiers Brisbane, who do not enjoy the commercial, media and political influence of their grand-final opponents, the Eddie McGuire-led Collingwood.
Significantly, following the victory of the Bondi Junction-based club over the Bulldogs in the preliminary final, the Roosters president, millionaire businessman Nick Politis, expressed the ambition to duplicate the Lions' three successive premierships.
The grand final might be billed as a "head says the Roosters and heart says the Panthers" game but there is plenty of power and passion in key places favouring the premiers.
The "Clovelly Hotel Mafia" - a group of influential men who meet at the watering hole, including NRL chief executive David Gallop, leading player manager Wayne Beavis, ARL chief executive Geoff Carr and NSW State of Origin coach Phil Gould - is said to exercise power.
Gould, the Roosters' coaching director, certainly exerts a powerful media influence through his columns in Fairfax newspapers, publishers of the Herald, and Channel Nine.
Beavis's principal client is Roosters captain Brad Fittler and Carr watches Sunday football games with both, although the likeable official is widely regarded as the code's "Mr Fixit" of strained relationships, the only man whose popularity is so widespread he can bring warring parties together.
Gallop rejects the notion he is part of a Clovelly Mafia and avoids having a beer there in case it fuels the perception. Last month he found himself having to defend his recent membership of the Clovelly Surf Club, saying he goes there because "it's got a gym".
Still, NSW and City selectors, rival club officials and past players quip they are more likely to find out what is happening in rugby league at Clovelly than the Fox Studios headquarters of the code.
Alternatively, they call into the Lord Dudley hotel in Paddington, where another player manager with key clients, John Fordham, is usually in tune with recent manoeuvres. Fordham counts among his clients Roosters coach Ricky Stuart and player Ryan Cross.
The power of the east is a perception Gallop resents. He nominates his opposition to attempts by Politis to increase the salary cap. Gould campaigned for an increase in the $3.25 million cap and Beavis led the opposition to an apparent concession by players' association boss Tony Butterfield to let NRL salary-cap cop Ian Schubert (another former Rooster and a vigilant auditor) peruse players' tax records. (The NRL subsequently withdrew its demand to check tax records.)
The truth is these manoeuvres are mere pawn play to the real power base of the game - the NRL Partnership Committee, which consists of three representatives from News Ltd, three nominees of the ARL and is chaired by Colin Love, who is also ARL boss.
Politis is one of the three ARL directors and a friend of Love, an eastern suburbs resident. This board makes the key decisions - whether to increase the number of teams to include Gosford or the Gold Coast; the awarding of radio and TV rights; approving key sponsorships.
Politis, whose investment and control at Bondi Junction is such that the Roosters resemble a privately owned club, is campaigning for the Gold Coast, a move some cynics suggest is designed to curb the power of the Broncos. Sydney businessman John Singleton, who has a small shareholding in the Broncos, wants a Central Coast team. Not surprisingly, Singo, an eastern suburbs resident, says he hates the Roosters. But his radio station, 2GB, does hold the league radio rights.
Channel Nine, owned by long-time "Easts" supporters Kerry and James Packer and run by a director of the Roosters, David Gyngell, holds the free-to-air rights and half-owns Fox Sports, which controls the pay-TV rights.
A close friend of Politis is Mark Bouris, part-owner of Wizard Home Loans, which sponsors the NSW State of Origin team. Bouris is a key supporter of Gould and has been influential in Fittler's career.
Fans complain that sport is now merely a business, but the reverse may be true at the Roosters. Certainly, the two have merged. Politis-Bouris-James Packer-Gyngell are too straight-talking to lace their speech with sports metaphors, like many other sneaker-wearing businessmen. You never hear them talk about "blue-chip recruits" or "level playing fields".
Still, the phone-number salaries, designer clothes, luxury cars, a win-at-all-costs competition and dizzying celebrity makes it sometimes difficult to separate the footballer from the businessman.
It can be argued the eastern suburbs have always been influential in rugby league decision-making, particularly when John Quayle, a former Roosters player and resident of Centennial Park, was chief executive of the NSWRL. But NSWRL and ARL chairman Ken Arthurson, a Manly supporter, and Peter Moore, chief executive of the Bulldogs, wielded enormous influence during Quayle's reign. Quayle is now happiest when he can escape to his olive farm in the Hunter Valley, which he co-owns with Politis.
In Quayle's day, influence in the game tended to be exercised via referees and the judiciary. The NRL has worked hard to establish transparency and referees boss Robert Finch, whose son Brett plays for the Roosters, is scrupulously fair.
Judiciary chairman Jim Hall, who played three seasons with the Roosters, said of the so-called Clovelly Mafia: "I avoid meetings with those blokes."
He said his tribunal members, including Royce Ayliffe who captained the Roosters, could actually be harder on their former clubs.
"Clubs you've played for are worse off because we tend to be stricter," Hall said.
Still, even peripheral positions in the code are held by former tricolours players. Roosters board member Ron Coote is president of the Men of League, a past players' association. Roosters deputy chairman of 10 years Bill Healey has recently been appointed to one of the NSW Government's most senior and prestigious posts, Director General of Sport, Tourism and Recreation. However, Healey is considering his future with the club lest his new position be compromised by his role at the Roosters.
Not all the powerbrokers are eastern suburbs residents, or Rooster supporters. NRL board chairman Malcolm Noad lives on the North Shore.
But the influence of Penrith is so minimal that only one official has ever held a position on a board of a governing body. Panthers general manager Roger Cowan was on the NSWRL executive during the reign of Kevin Humphreys but resigned in frustration. "We met every Monday for a full year to try and work out ways of stopping the spiralling cost of rugby league," Cowan said. "The final system we came up with was to recognise local products.
"Parramatta had ex-juniors in first grade in every club, yet we had only seven players anywhere in Australia who had come from Penrith's junior ranks. Our juniors had not broken through. So a system to reward local juniors was going to be a handicap for us. They still brought it in."
Thirty years later, Penrith have the richest vein of local juniors in the code and the Roosters the poorest. No wonder the Roosters are attempting to exert pressure on the salary cap.
But their success has meant kids in the eastern suburbs now go to primary school in Roosters jumpers. In the long run, that may be their most powerful ally of all.
SMH
