Bears' Central Coast Stadium stake for sale
By Brad Walter
March 9, 2005
North Sydney's 20 per cent stake in the Central Coast Stadium is up for sale to NRL clubs looking to relocate, leagues club boss Jim Henry revealed yesterday.
Henry said the Gold Coast were a better proposition of gaining entry to the NRL in 2007 and advised the Bears to give up on their battle for readmission to the competition as a Gosford-based team.
He said South Sydney were best placed to buy the stake in the stadium and relocate to the Central Coast instead of moving to Telstra Stadium.
"That's going to be embarrassing to have 90 per cent of the stadium vacant [at Telstra]," Henry said. "I personally think that there is an avenue available for Souths [at Gosford], but I thought at one stage that the Melbourne Storm would go up there. It's an enormously growing area that is crying out for a football team.
"But there is no encouragement from the NRL for us to continue so by the process of elimination the Gold Coast are the only [consortium] left standing. [For Norths] it's a matter of what part of 'not happening' don't you understand."
A bid by Norths football club president Mike Gibbons and a group of business people to take control of the leagues club board was also doomed to fail, Henry said, with their application for an extraordinary general meeting having been rejected.
Instead, Henry, who will retire on April 20 from his position as general manager of North Sydney Leagues after almost 20 years,
The best chance of the Central Coast having a team would be if a Sydney-based NRL club was to relocate, he said.
"I think these people honestly believe that they can resurrect North Sydney football team, but the bottom line is that to run an NRL club you need an absolute minimum of $16 million," Henry said of the Bears.
"Who's going to give them that sort of money. People forget that it cost John Singleton a couple of million bucks [to bankroll Norths' 2004 campaign to become the NRL's 16th team], and the leagues club has been very good to the football club.
"Since they went into administration in 1999, they have received from the leagues club $11.3 million. There's teams playing in the NRL that don't get that from their leagues club. But no one's knocking on the door and the Sharks have tied up the Central Coast juniors.
"In my opinion, the Bears should play in the Jim Beam Cup. I believe the Jim Beam Cup will become the state cup in a couple of years and the name North Sydney would still invoke some sort of passion."
Asked about the leagues club's 20 per cent shareholding in the Singleton-controlled Central Coast Stadium, Henry said: "We've still got it. We can't just sell it, not even to Singo. It's got to be approved by Gosford Council and any buyer would have to be a non-profit organisation like a football club or a registered club.
"But it would be a good investment and if, for example, an NRL team wanted to relocate up there, it would obviously give them an opportunity to get some equity in the stadium and I've got to say that the board would give serious consideration to that."
After last August deferring any decision on expanding the competition until this year, the NRL is offering $8 million for teams to relocate and there is an understanding that another $2 million would also be on the table in Gosford.
With the Gold Coast Dolphins now overwhelming favourites to become the 16th team, Henry said he believed South Sydney should take up the offer rather than move to Telstra Stadium for home games next season, as the Rabbitohs are proposing.
An angry Gibbons said that Henry's comments were indicative of the reasons he was heading a ticket against the current board.
"If Jim Henry thinks we should be in the Jim Beam Cup, then Parramatta will have to be there with us, because we beat them in premier league last week," Gibbons said.
"The leagues club was set up by the football club 50 years ago to propagate rugby league and that is why we want to take control and put it back on the path from which it has strayed."
