What does it say? (I have a pay wall stopping me reading it)
If you didn’t know any better, you could’ve mistaken ARL Commission chairman Peter V’landys on Sunday for being the US President in one of those end-of-the-world movies straight out of Hollywood.
Think Morgan Freeman in Deep Impact addressing the nation as a deadly asteroid comes hurtling towards Earth.
An Australia without rugby league is not Australia!” V’landys boldly declared at a media conference at League Central as the financial cost of the coronavirus hit home while, at the same time, seemingly forgetting that an Australia without people is also not Australia.
Sitting alongside nodding chief executive Todd Greenberg — who was about to lose his job later this week but not now — V’landys laid out why the federal government needs to bail out a multibillion-dollar professional sport, that spruiks every five years how much money it makes from its broadcast deals, that only a week or so ago trumpeted how it’s in rude health after returning a $30 million profit.
V’landys talked about the game only having months to live if fan lockouts continued, or even worse if it was indefinitely suspended.
“The last resort for us is to go to the players and ask them for a pay cut because, like the rest of us, they’ve got mortgages and made commitments on the money they believe they’re going to get," he said.
The room cringed. Twitter was broken. Will someone think of the footballers?!
Rugby league’s great unwashed probably don’t care how players on an average wage of $371,000-a-year are going to battle through this. Or if the best-paid players on $1 million might have to sell off that fourth investment property they snapped up when the market was right.
And if Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s icy response at a media conference late on Sunday when asked about V'landys comments is any indication, he’s also not big on the idea of bailing out rugby league.
He’s probably more concerned right now about having enough ICU beds if this thing keeps spreading, and people start dying, at the same pace as seen in other parts of the world.
V’landys is calling from the same playbook he used in 2007 when equine influenza ripped through the racing industry, stopping meetings across the country but predominantly in NSW and Queensland.
In his role as Racing NSW chief executive, he walked into then Prime Minister John Howard’s office, asked for a $110m rescue package — and ended up with $235m.
“That was an apprenticeship,” V’landys quipped at Sunday morning’s media conference. “This is like starting the trade.”
How much does he want from Morrison for rugby league, then?
“I usually start at $500m and work my way down,” he quipped again.
V’landys later confirmed he hadn’t spoken to Morrison, or NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian, or any government official for that matter, which means he was using the media to lobby for funds.
That raises the suspicion that the NRL is more concerned with its financial health than preventing the spread of the coronavirus.
Almost everyone has an opinion on solutions, of course, from suspending the premiership for a month and getting rid of the Kangaroo tour at the end of the year, to playing every match out of the one venue for the foreseeable future.
One day, Souths coach Wayne Bennett said he wanted the comp suspended. The next, he wanted matches in Darwin and Townsville. Which one is it, supercoach?
Another suggestion that's been tossed about among government bureaucrats is diverting the $800m about to be spent on refurbishing ANZ Stadium to rugby league, rugby, football and other sports. Could it be that easy?
“There’s a lot of uncertainty around the happenings, and I suppose the goings-on, of the coronavirus,” Corey Parker mused on Fox Sports before Penrith hosted the Roosters.
https://www.smh.com.au/sport/nrl/v-...le-of-coronavirus-crisis-20200315-p54aac.html
