If it were that simple, why wouldn't he have brought the best bid in at the time, and offered other clubs $ to relocate to the GC instead?
I suggest that it's partly because after having removed the bears a decade ago, it would've been an embarrassing backflip to concede that they should have been re-admitted (especially since only a couple of years previously the bunnies made a comeback). I think its (at least in part) a face-saving exercise for Gallop. If someone other than the bears successfully managed to claim the central coast, he wouldn't be left in the position of having to admit past mistakes.
If he'd accepted the best bid at the time, he still could've offered for a team to relocate to the GC, and still would've been able to remove a sydney team.
As for a relocation being more about reducing the number of Sydney teams than anything else - if you were to listen to most people in here, it wouldn't make a difference, since Gosford is apparently next to Gordon or Turramurra (or may as well be, since it is part of Sydney). Some people in this forum would have you believe that nothing would change if a Sydney team relocated to Gosford (there's still the same number of "Sydney" teams), yet in the same breath tell you that if a struggling club moved, it would solve all the overcrowding problems! I gave up fighting that particular argument a while ago. However, if it was all about removing a Sydney team as you say PR, then more effort should've been exerted trying to find a team to move to the GC instead of introducing the Titans.
