Independence comes a year late
Brent Read
From: The Australian
July 25, 2011 12:00AM
TALKS over the game's next broadcasting deal are set to remain on hold for several months yet after it emerged officials had targeted November 1 as the start-up date for the independent commission.
The Australian understands talks between key stakeholders on Saturday night resolved that the Australian Rugby League and News Limited -- the game's co-owners -- should hand over the mantle on November 1, whereupon the broadcasting negotiations will become the key piece of business. Ironically, the latest target date for commission formation comes almost exactly a year after officials spruiked the commission would begin on November 1 -- only then they were talking about last year.
However, there is no turning back now, given the game has announced the inaugural eight commissioners and elected its first chairman, Queenslander John Grant. While several matters are still to be resolved, chiefly the issue of a non-compete clause and the finalisation of NRL chief executive David Gallop's contract, they are not considered significant enough to stop the commission coming to fruition.
While the November 1 start-up date gives the NRL and its clubs some certainty over the handover of the game, it also means there will be no talks over the broadcasting rights before then.
Club chief executives and chairmen were told at their summit last week that those negotiations could not begin until the commission was legally in place.
It means the broadcasting rights may not be finalised until next year, creating a series of difficult issues. Most notably, the NRL will not be able to confirm a salary cap for 2013 until the broadcasting rights are finalised. That, in turn, means clubs will be unable to spend or recruit with any certainty. The NRL has foreshadowed a series of scenarios based on possible broadcasting deals, with the largest being a whopping $1.4 billion for the next five years. But with so much hingeing on the money the game is expected to generate from those talks, clubs and players are looking at several months of limbo.
Meanwhile, the NRL match review committee has dropped its legal action against Queensland coach Mal Meninga after he used his column in yesterday's The Sunday Mail to clarify his earlier criticism of the body.
Match review commissioner Greg McCallum confirmed the committee saw the matter as resolved. As part of the resolution, Meninga will also fly to Sydney to meet the match review committee.
"The issue and the action taken by the NRL match review committee (MRC) has only ever been about protecting the good name of its members, Greg McCallum, Peter Louis and Bradley Clyde, and the absolute integrity in which those members operate week in week out in the game without bias or interference," McCallum said in a statement. "Mal's comments today clearly reflect and support that view. We see this matter now as resolved. The committee looks forward to welcoming Mal to a meeting of the MRC soon."
Meninga's manager Jim Banaghan said the Maroons coach was never going to back down or apologise for his comments, but was happy to ensure the NRL match review committee knew it was not his intended target.
"It was just some sensible behind-the-scenes talk to see where people had their noses out of joint and how it could be fixed up," Banaghan said.
"Everyone now knows that the people who received the offence, shouldn't have, and were never the intended targets of the original column. Common sense has prevailed. There was no request for an apology, no demands for a retraction. There was a simple request for a clarification."
