Dirty ploy to keep the NRL out of Western Australia
A large part of the current tit-for-tat between the rival codes boils down to the feeling that the AFL are employing dirty tactics in a bid to keep rugby league from becoming a national sport by entering the Western Australian market.
The Western Bears would deliver a $500 million economic boost over 10 years, however, all the talk coming out of local WA news outlets is how the public is against it.
The NRL is understood to have waited until after the WA state election on March 8 before resuming talks with WA Premier Roger Cook.
However, time is not on the NRL’s side.
With the league needing to lock in Perth in the coming weeks or move on, there is a view AFL officials are playing dirty games in the background in a bid to keep WA as an AFL stronghold.
The NRL is set to table its long-term vision to prospective broadcasters in the coming weeks for 2028 and beyond.
However, that means they have just a few weeks to either confirm Perth as the NRL’s 19th team or move on.
“Western Australia is an important part of our strategy and if it comes off it comes off and if it doesn’t we just move forward and continue what we do,” V’landys said on Triple M’s Sunday Sin Bin.
“The information is that there is concern from the AFL about our ambition to get into Western Australia and I don’t know why.
“Because competition lifts all ships. We don’t object to the Swans here in Sydney and GWS in Western Sydney. “
But Western Australia has long been regarded as an AFL stronghold, with two major sports teams in the state, the West Coast Eagles and Fremantle.
It has been suggested local media have been anything but impartial in covering the NRL’s expansion plans.
The West Australian newspaper on Monday claimed no one except the Premier wants an NRL club in WA and went as far as to say rugby league has “no hope” of succeeding in the state.
“Premier Roger Cook is a self-confessed rugby league nuffy, we know that. If he were not, this ridiculous conversation about the North Sydney Bears — a dud, third-grade club, based over the other side of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, yes, in Sydney in case you’re confused — being revived into the big leagues as Perth’s Western Bears would have ended long ago,” The West Australian claimed.
“The problem for NRL boss Peter V’landys, determined to extend the reach of his broadcast rights to another time zone, is that no one is buying it. And no one with any pull in WA, except Mr Cook and his Sports Minister and Treasurer Rita Saffioti, are willing to reach into their pockets to pay for something that has no popular local support, no grassroots presence and no hope.”
But
Code Sports reports, the noise from media in WA is solely an attempt to try and stop the NRL from taking a slice of the AFL’s pie.
“There are dirty tactics to shut the NRL out of Perth,” one industry source told Code Sports.
“The AFL is no longer the No. 1 code with viewers. By expanding to Perth and Papua New Guinea, the NRL will not only have a national reach, but tentacles globally in the Pacific via PNG.”
