NRL tells clubs to get women on board
Jacquelin Magnay | June 18, 2009
THE NRL board has called for all of its clubs to provide detailed summaries of their corporate governance procedures and to actively promote women into board positions as the code tries to recover from the sex and finance scandals that have rocked Cronulla.
The board's call yesterday for more women to be appointed to senior roles and board positions comes five years after a high-profile review recommended the same initiative. Yet there are only three women on club boards: Dawn Fraser at Wests Tigers football club, Lyn Wallace at Parramatta Leagues Club and Petra Fawcett at the Melbourne Storm, despite there being 110 board positions available at 14 football clubs and scores more at associated leagues clubs. Two clubs, the Warriors and the Titans, are privately owned by men.
Yesterday the NRL board - which has one female board member in Katie Page and seven men - moved to again address that situation in a code that is still being rocked by issues of corporate governance and poor treatment of women.
Cronulla has been reeling from: the 2002 group sex scandal; a female employee being accidentally punched in the face by former chief executive Tony Zappia; pornography and sex toys being linked to the club, and; the secret dealings of Zappia. He had squirrelled $20,000 into a foundation and received another $10,000 from a club benefactor without telling the Cronulla board. The money might be the proceeds of a crime, with the donor, Clint Elford, released on strict bail conditions yesterday after being charged with fraud.
"There was clearly a concern over the recent issues at Cronulla, and while we would expect that this was very much a one-off episode, the board felt that we should seek reassurance from all clubs as to the corporate governance procedures in place at each organisation," NRL chief executive David Gallop said. "The board is strongly of the view that there are a large number of women in corporate life who could add real value to rugby league clubs at a board level as well as in administrative roles.
"It is important going forward that the make-up of boards in some way reflects the fact that almost half the game's fans are women and that an increasing the number of women are involved in administration and game participation."
Catharine Lumby, Wendy McCarthy, Karen Willis and Michael Flood were involved in the Playing by the Rules Project in 2004, and noted with prescience: "It is not simply players who define club culture. The CEO, the chair and the board, and the coach all have an important and often determining influence on their club's culture. "The CEOs, chairmen and coaches across the league need to encourage the participation of women at every level in their football clubs."
Several top-flight women who would have immediate impact and bring heavyweight corporate experience to football and leagues club boards include former Channel Seven chief executive Maureen Plavsic, Museum of Contemporary Art executive Liz Ann McGregor, PBL media sales integration manager Lou Barrett, Harris Farm Markets manager Kathy Harris, public relations chief Amanda Little, Sydney University sport deputy director Michelle Nancarrow, the former Wizard executive Jill Emberson and the Australian Olympic Committee legal counsel Fiona de Jong
The chair of the International Working Group on Women in Sport, under the auspices of the United Nations, Johanna Adriaanse, said the NRL's move was excellent but long overdue.
Adriaanse said the NRL might have to put in place a target or other incentive, perhaps financial and linked to club grants, to encourage clubs. "Having women on boards allows for the club to have a much more balanced view, and it will help tackle the violence against women that exists in the sporting culture," she said.
