http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/n...s/news-story/00dc127b832afefdfb1b6b7471c769ad
Knights chairman Brian McGuigan says John Grant has ‘stuffed up’ and must apologise to clubs
November 28, 2016 9:42pm
Barry Toohey
NEWCASTLE chairman Brian McGuigan says John Grant “stuffed up” and has called on the ARL Commission chairman to immediately apologise in a bid to bring warring factions back to the negotiating table to resolve the funding crisis issue.
The Gold Coast Titans weren’t the only club not to sign a formal letter calling for Grant to resign with McGuigan revealing the NRL-controlled Knights also abstained from voting.
“How can we vote against the hand that feeds us?’’ McGuigan said.
“The Titans and ourselves abstained from voting with the complete understanding of the other clubs because we are in an invidious position.
“But we are as one with all the other clubs — it’s just the way we go about resolving it is the issue now.”
McGuigan said he never considered walking out of the meeting with Grant last Wednesday but can understand the views of those who did.
“For me, walking out was too extreme but some of the chairman who did walk were the people who were part of the subcommittee that had been directly negotiating with the NRL,” he said.
“That’s why they felt so concerned and deflated by the NRL saying they were cancelling the talks and going back to scratch.
“It hit them very hard because I think we all felt we were within a couple of hours of having all our issues agree to before having the rug pulled out from under us.”
While he said he couldn’t speak for other chairmen, McGuigan said he is prepared to meet with Grant later this week to keep the dialogue going.
But he said an apology has to be the first port of call.
“I would hope there would be an apology from Johns to all those chairmen who were offended by the way in which we were disrespected,” he said.
“By the way in which the whole thing has been handled and presented.
“John stuffed up. He has admitted everywhere that Wednesday’s gospel was a fiasco and that the chairmen, particularly the negotiating people were offended and that has got to be corrected by an apology.
“He had only returned home that morning and I don’t think it had been prepared well enough or thought through well enough when it was presented.
“I’d put it down to a lack of being updated about every body’s expectations.
“I hope we can get back together and thrash it out. People will be sceptical about such a view but I just think you get a lot further with honey than you do with vinegar.”
McGuigan admitted he doesn’t know if a resolution is possible with Grant remaining as chairman given the hostility from other clubs.
“I don’t have an answer to that,” he said.
“We have received some correspondence from John which I’m yet to respond to but will say I am available for meetings at any time because the only way to resolve this is to talk.
“We have to get back to talk. If we can’t with everybody, we have to go by ourselves and hopefully as a result of moving forward, we can entice some of those other chairmen back.
“We have to find a way to go forward and get this resolved for the good of the game.”
