Enjoy, true fans of rugby league... look away those who fear the great man's LEADERSHIP.
https://www.smh.com.au/sport/nrl/q-...g-marks-and-rugba-league-20200522-p54vje.html
Q&A: V'landys on Murdoch, Politis, Greenberg, Marks and 'rugba league'
Andrew Webster
May 23, 2020 — 12.01am
Peter V’landys is on a week's annual leave as Racing NSW chief executive.
Instead of chillaxing in his ugg boots, the ARL Commission chairman has been at League Central every day, wearing a suit and tie, negotiating broadcast deals with Nine Entertainment Co and Foxtel, taking on the referees’ association and poring through the NRL’s finances before Thursday night’s competition restart.
He gave the
Herald an hour, though, to talk about the big issues, including why he calls the game “rugba league”.
You’ve been very un-rugby league throughout this crisis: quick, decisive, not listening to committees.
When I took the job on, I said I’d be a traditional chairman — unless there’s an emergency. I said at my first press conference, “I’ll see you in 12 months”. For my first four months, I was very quiet. Then the coronavirus struck.
You’ve said you should never have shut the game down. Are you serious when you say that?
Public relations-wise, it would’ve been difficult. People would’ve asked, “Why is rugby league still going and we’re not?” It would’ve been a nightmare, along with the closure of the borders. But racing proved you can do it properly if you follow the correct biosecurity measures. People say players are spitting all over each other. But if they’re all negative, what does it matter?
How do you know they’re all negative if you haven’t conducted blanket tests?
I've done all this through analysis, not gut feeling. The legal adviser at Racing NSW stuck the idea in my head. He asked, “What are you doing to get the game back? What analysis are you doing?” I said, “What analysis do you think I should be doing?” He said I should be looking at the infection rate. I dug deep into the figures. Sixty per cent [of infections] came from overseas and 15 to 20 per cent from the Ruby Princess. Once you’ve closed the borders, 60 per cent of the risk has gone. When we stopped the competition, the infection rate was 25 per cent. Every day since, it’s gone down.
You’ve rattled off infection rates numerous times. Common sense would suggest it's become negligible because we’ve been in lockdown.
I’m different to you. It’s dropped because they shut the borders. As soon as we shut the borders, I knew it would be safe.
Your first pandemic expert didn’t think it would be …
I listened to her because of the Ruby Princess. I think she was a bit extreme.
What if I put to her that you dumped her because you didn’t like her advice?
Well, no. She’s given us advice that hasn’t proven correct. I’m not blaming the lady for that. But I’m not going back to a person who’s already given me incorrect advice.
That’s why all these people have remained anonymous.
You’ve denied this before but I’m not buying it: you’re happy to be restarting ahead of the AFL.
Subconsciously, you’re probably right. At times I’ve looked at them and had a giggle. The first thing I said to Wayne Pearce, who heads Project Apollo, is that we won’t be using “bubbles”. We’ll just need self-isolation — and I was right. Three weeks later, the AFL was still looking at bubbles. But no: I was more worried about us and making sure my predictions were the right ones.
I said, nine weeks ago, that we could train in Victoria and Queensland — at that stage we couldn’t. I said the Warriors could come over — at that stage we couldn’t …
You’ve been fascinating to watch from close range. The Prime Minister smacked you down twice in four days about the Warriors getting a travel exemption — and then it happened.
That’s my style. The same thing happened with the race fields legislation. [In 2008, V’landys successfully argued in the High Court that corporate bookmakers needed to pay racing for use of its product]. For four years that dominated my life. That’s now generating billions of dollars for racing. That was a lot harder than this. The race fields issue made me tougher because I realised I could put up with personal abuse. I discovered the “delete” button. But I get good publicity too.
The COVID-19 crisis has exposed the game’s financial frailties. You’ve been critical, so has Peter Beattie. He’s a former chairman and you've been on the commission for two years, signing off on budgets and executive bonuses. Surely you need to wear some of the blame.
If anyone wanted to look at the minutes, every meeting I raised concerns. When the budgets came through, I rejected them. You can only challenge so much. To Peter Beattie’s credit, when he came on board he realised the greatest problem this organisation has is that it has no assets. And the cash that was there was bullshit because we owed $80 million to the broadcasters. Of the $104 million we had, we only had $30 million or so. To the broadcasters’ credit, they haven’t called on that money. If they did, we were stuffed.
The NRL has been trying to save clubs from themselves for years. Why will you be different?
Because there’s been a relationship between the NRL and the clubs for the first time. We’re in the trenches together. The biggest mistake this organisation has made is that it's treated the clubs as second-rate citizens. They’re our shareholders. They’re the brand. The thing is there’s a lot of unity at the moment, between the NRL, clubs and players union. [RLPA chief executive] Clint Newton is a smart operator.
Some players think he’s too close to you …
I think they’re wrong. Relationships are the greatest asset I have; with politicians, media moguls … I’ve built that over a long period of time. Clint has realised you get more bees with honey than vinegar. He’s got more for the players by having a relationship with me than he would’ve got if he was confrontational. I’m the sort of person who would be twice as confrontational back.
The referees have become confrontational. They don’t have a seat at the table. The referees ask, “Why aren’t we treated like the players?” Because we have a relationship.
What about your relationship with Channel Nine [publisher of this masthead]?
I genuinely believe that Channel Nine didn’t want to be there but I’m confident in the next month there will a long-term deal with Nine.
Do you really believe they were going to walk away? They were negotiating a better deal, surely.
I do. [Nine chief executive] Hugh Marks is a very good businessman. If I had a public company, I’d want him to be a CEO. If you look at rugby league purely on a business case, you can understand his reasoning. He was making losses on it.
Was Channel Seven interested?
No. They are heavily invested in the AFL and have a chairman in Kerry Stokes who is AFL obsessed. It was never an option in my eyes.
