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I've posted this before but will again: The NRL did not veto a move by Cronulla to the Central Coast, what they said was that the financial incentive was off the table. In saying that the sharks won't go to the central coast.
Of course the NRL could stop a team relocating. The NRL hand out the licenses to be part of the comp. Approval of relocations, changes of ownership, mergers etc etc would all be conditions of the license. After all, the NRL is hardly going to allow say Newtown to buy the Warriors license and move it to Sydney. The NRL has millions of dollars of broadcast revenue tied to the location of teams, they're not going to allow the whims of individual club owners to risk that.
Cooper top of the shopping list for brisbane's new dream team
Brad Walter
SEVERAL NRL players have already agreed to join a proposed second Brisbane team, and the consortium behind the bid is in negotiations to snare Wallabies playmaker Quade Cooper and All Blacks sensation Sonny Bill Williams from rugby.
The Brisbane NRL Expansion Bid team is planning to announce today the steps taken so far to ensure it is ready to join the competition in 2013 if the green light is given for its admission, including obtaining a potential major sponsor and recruiting players.
The most significant development is the revelation that the consortium has been in talks with Cooper and Williams's manager, Khoder Nasser, and believes the pair would be prepared to switch codes if the team were granted a licence to play in the NRL in 2013.
Nasser first met the bid team's directors Craig Davidson, Bill Rae and Nicholas Livermore while in Brisbane for Anthony Mundine's April 13 boxing rematch with Garth Wood, and the parties have remained in contact.
Further discussions were held between Nasser and Rae last Sunday when Williams was playing in Brisbane for the Crusaders against Cooper's Queensland Reds.
''We had a meeting with Khoder Nasser several weeks ago, and he indicated that they were very open to the idea of coming to rugby league,'' Davidson said. ''The big thing for Quade is that he wants to play State of Origin, and if we are not in the competition in 2013, it will probably be for someone else. We probably couldn't afford Sonny Bill Williams but that would depend on third-party deals. These guys already have a number of third-party deals that they could bring across with them.''
The key to Williams's playing future will most likely depend on his boxing career. The former Bulldogs star will have his fourth professional bout, in Auckland on Sunday, against Tonga's Alipate Liava'a in a co-promotion with Mundine, who is fighting American Xavier Toliver, and he wants to continue to develop as a boxer. The New Zealand Rugby Union lured Williams from Toulon on a deal worth less than a third of what the French Top 14 club had offered him by allowing the 25-year-old to box during the season.
His presence last Sunday helped the Reds attract a record Super Rugby attendance of 48,301 at Suncorp Stadium, with one Broncos official telling the Herald he believed Williams was responsible for ''putting an extra 15,000 bums on seats'' at the match, and could do the same in the NRL.
Cooper last week signed a one-year extension with the Australian Rugby Union, and would be free to join the new Brisbane NRL team if it were admitted to the premiership in 2013, while Williams is off contract after this year's Rugby World Cup.
''They are extremely driven, and have made it clear that Quade is their priority but for them to even be an option they first have to get a licence, and that is something that is not in their hands,'' Nasser said.
The Brisbane bid team is waiting for the independent commission to take over the running of the game, with one of the new body's first tasks expected to be deciding whether to expand the competition.
Davidson said the directors had met NRL chief executive David Gallop and several other leading figures in the game, as well as players who have come to terms on the proviso the team enters the competition in 2013.
The main rival to a second Brisbane team, which is expected to be based in the northern suburbs at Albion, is Ipswich but Davidson said the city was smaller than Newcastle and would not have the same corporate support as his consortium, which has Centrebet as a major backer.
''The strength of our bid is our Brisbane location, and we want to make it clear that we are ready to join the competition in 2013,'' Davidson said. "The financial modelling has been completed by a national accounting firm, and our corporate partners and investors are all keen to get started."
Memberships are still growing rapidly, merchandise is still selling very well, support has grown immensely since the start of the year, more local businesses have jumped on as sponsors, more community initiatives are in place, heaps of charity work being done on the Coast by the organization, heaps of CCBears fans keep appearing on national tv shows, profile keeps growing and the case keeps getting stronger
