Tinkler blames Tew, Burraston for aborted takeover
BY JAMES GARDINER
22 Feb, 2011 04:00 AM
A SEETHING Nathan Tinkler has accused Knights chairman Rob Tew and chief executive Steve Burraston of acting in self-interest and ruled out further dealings with the NRL club under the present management.
Tew and Burraston rejected Tinkler’s assertions and said they had acted in the best interests of members in seeking an acceptable buyout deal.
Frustrated after three months of negotiations, Tinkler withdrew his deal to take over the club and launched a stinging attack on its management yesterday.
The 34-year-old tycoon told the Newcastle Herald the only way he would reopen talks was under a new board.
‘‘We have been working on this for three months and we are still at the same point we were three months ago,’’ Tinkler said.
‘‘You can only bang your head against the wall for so long. Life goes on. They had their chance.
‘‘People say [the club] has to be in community hands.
‘‘Let me tell you it is not a community club at the moment. It is in the hands of two men, Steve Burraston and Robbie Tew.
‘‘It is a two-man show. The Newcastle Knights belong to Robbie Tew and Steve Burraston.
‘‘They are not capable of closing this deal. That is my frustration. The consequence of that is to say, ‘That’s enough; we are not going to get there.’
‘‘If something transpires and there is a new Knights board, I would be more than happy to talk.’’
According to the Knights’ constitution, the signatures of at least 100 members are required to call a extraordinary general meeting to move a vote of no-confidence in the club’s board of directors.
‘‘We are not going to get there with this board, with these guys; there is too much self-interest involved,’’ Tinkler said.
‘‘If this was about the community, you would look at the commercial terms and say, ‘$10million for 10years, this is a pretty super deal.’
‘‘These guys don’t recognise commercial terms; they are only worried about their jobs, I think.’’
Tinkler said the Knights had been poorly advised about his offer.
‘‘It is just very, very frustrating,’’ he said.
‘‘Like it or not, there are millions of dollars at stake for the community in this deal. They should be better advised than what they are.’’
Tew and Burraston rejected Tinkler’s assertions.
Tew pointed to the fact that board members were not paid.
‘‘I have no pecuniary interests in a particular outcome here,’’ he said.
‘‘The easy thing to do would have been to move on and hand it over.
‘‘The hard thing to do is to represent the best interests of this club and the membership and represent the best interests of this community.’’
Burraston is on salary but said he had no influence over the board.
Tinkler said he had shaken hands and thought, ‘‘We are there, probably half a dozen times’’ in the past three months.
‘‘Then each time they go away and come back with more claims that frustrate you,’’ he said.
Tinkler said the toughest thing was what he considered a lack of respect.
‘‘The fact that these guys must think, ‘I’m dealing with this young bloke who will pay anything.’ That is ridiculous.
‘‘Guaranteeing $10million a year for a football club, that was my passion for the community and wanting Newcastle to go forward.
‘‘They are waiting for another miracle. Good luck with that.
‘‘I’d rather make things happen than sit and hope.’’
Though a long-time supporter of the Knights, Tinkler said he would have no problems cutting ties with the club.
‘‘There are plenty of other charities in Newcastle that this money can be used for and I don’t think they will be as near as hard to deal with,’’ he said.
‘‘That is what we are talking about: the club is a charity; it is not a viable concern. It has never made money in its 23 years.
‘‘For the last couple of years I have rolled a bit of my loan over as sponsorship so they can claim they are making a profit.
‘‘I have done that because the club is important to the community and I value their existence. It has got to the point where the club is going to forever struggle and I didn’t want that to be the case.’’
Tinkler, who is worth an estimated $610million, said the breakdown of the Knights deal would not affect his plans to revive a Newcastle team in the National Basketball League and bring other major sports to the region.
‘‘It’s business as usual,’’ he said.
‘‘We have the Jets and are enjoying that and busily getting a squad together for next season.
‘‘It’s full steam ahead. It doesn’t mean we are any less likely to try and get a basketball franchise or get a netball team here.
‘‘We are no less committed to the community. We go where we are wanted. Surfest, those guys were in trouble, we were happy to help [with a five-year $300,000 lifeline].’’
Tinkler has lent the Knights money in the past to keep them afloat and said he intended to call in a $500,000 outstanding debt.
The Jets would pursue $250,000 in compensation from a motocross event that forced them to move an A-League game to Port Macquarie.
‘‘You guys don’t want my offer, you don’t need my money: give it back to me,’’ Tinkler said.
‘‘You can’t put your hand out and tell me you need my support and then bite the hand that feeds.
‘‘If you don’t want the support, OK, the support is not there.
‘‘You have rejected my offer. You can’t look generosity in the eye and tell it to go away and then say we really need it, give me some money.
‘‘It started out as $750,000 and I rolled some of it into sponsorship a couple of years and another year I took a sponsorship and put Patinack Farm on the jersey.
‘‘They are playing me as a desperate buyer, that I am desperate to buy the Knights.
‘‘That is not the case. I never have been. The only reason it has transpired into this is because they are broke again and they asked me to put more money in.
‘‘I said, ‘Guys, I can’t keep doing this, putting half a million or $750,000 in the club at a time because you can’t get out of your own way to make sure things are managed properly.’
‘‘That is where we were again and that is what triggered the conversations about privatisation.
‘‘The loan was payable two years ago. It has been my goodwill towards the club that it has sat there.’’
The Knights unveiled a ‘‘patrons’ trust’’ model, which they say guarantees $1.5million a year for four years.
Burraston said the club would be happy to pay the money owing to Tinkler immediately.
