Rebecca Wilson: Dave Smith and the NRL must learn rugby league is no place for secrets
I MADE what I believed to be a legitimate phone call to rugby league commissioner Catherine Harris last week about the sacking of marketing manager Paul Kind and other matters league.
Harris, a successful owner of a fruit and vegetable conglomerate, picked up after several attempts.
“I’m in a meeting and I will not discuss the sacking of PK,” she responded.
What about other matters relating to the internal machinations of the NRL? Harris hung up and is yet to call me back. Last week, she was re-elected to the commission.
In the week since that call, the NRL Integrity Unit’s ineptitude was laid bare when it was trumped by several journalists who found out what really went on when two South Sydney stars were arrested at a US training camp in November.
The establishment of the Integrity Unit in 2013 was heralded as a major step in the fight to clean up the game’s image and hold players and clubs accountable for off-field indiscretions.
Sadly, the unit appears to operate with the same mentality as the clubs by having the tendency to face problems head-on only after they’ve become threats to the game’s image and reputation.
The fact it failed to interview John Sutton, Luke Burgess, Michael Maguire and the Rabbitohs’ NRL-bound CEO Shane Richardson is damning, to say the least.
Chief executive Dave Smith needs to ensure the Integrity Unit actually has some integrity and that will mean putting Richardson’s role in the cover-up under the microscope.
Kind’s sacking, the unit’s failings and Harris’s refusal to accept accountability for matters NRL are all part of a festering sore within rugby league’s headquarters at Moore Park.
The top-heavy administration is racked by inexperience and blame-laying is becoming the modus operandi of those ranked above administration officer.
The secrecy that surrounded Kind’s departure is a disgrace. In the week since he was escorted by security from the building, various ‘‘NRL sources’’ have been happy to “background’’ journalists on why he lost his job. The stories variously included imputations about Kind’s other business interests and relationships with large corporations. He was accused of “conflicts of interest’’.
These are all rubbish and defamatory. Kind’s departure relates to a personal matter and the fact he was seen as too close to Sydney’s league media.
His reputation has been tarnished because the NRL did not tell the whole truth about his sacking. Harris refused to back Kind or listen to any other version of events than the one from NRL HQ. The commission, sitting atop Smith and his lot, has sat back for two years without asking any tough questions of the NRL. Where were they when Souths covered up a domestic violence incident in May, 2013? Where were they when the Bulldogs did the same with Ben Barba? Did John Grant approve the sacking of Kind and, if so, did he know the real reasons?
The only way anyone on the commission can be unseated is if 75 per cent of the clubs vote to oust them. This is a deeply flawed element of the new NRL. Chairman Grant, Jeremy Sutcliffe and Harris were all re-elected by the rest of the commission last week but I challenge anyone to tell me what each of them has done during their first terms.
The Souths cover-up (it cannot be labelled anything else) came just days before Richardson’s appointment as the NRL’s new head of strategy. The man who has been put in charge of league’s future, and is being paid about $700,000, is the same bloke who repeatedly claimed there was no more to the Souths Arizona story (or to the other domestic violence incident last May).
Let’s also recall that the other new appointment, former banker Suzanne Young, was touted as the head of the Integrity Unit to replace Jim Doyle. She is on more than $600,000 but has not said a word this week about the South Sydney issue. That has been left to former ARU lawyer Nick Weeks who must be wondering why, all of a sudden, the Arizona cover-up is his problem and not his bosses’.
One suspects Doyle’s steady presence would have averted the Arizona mess. The departure of the respected league boss is sorely missed.
At the start of the season, we are all desperately willing this lot to get their house in order. We want the game to be great and head office to deliver on its promise of grand improvements.
Smith must realise by now the NRL is not a bank. The view that the Arizona scandal or Kind sacking should not be publicly aired is reflective of a culture that does not believe in accountability or honesty.
Dave, it is time to “normalise”, to govern without arrogance, secrecy or scandal.
