First posted on PATREON and SUBSTACK
By STEVE MASCORD
RUGBY league consultant Shane Richardson says the NRL’s level of control in a new European competition will not be related to its percentage ownership.
It is expected Super League club owners will hold an important meeting on Tuesday about a £50 million proposed investment from League Central, which some sources predict may rise to £60 million.
But the former Cronulla, Penrith, South Sydney and Wests Tigers chief executive says fans should not be side-tracked by reports of the NRL’s demand for ownership percentages and Super League’s responses.
The most recent reports have Australian Rugby League Commission’s percentage rising to 50 percent over five years.
“Ownership doesn’t necessarily lead to control,” Richardson tells rugbyleaguehub.com Long Reads.
“If you sign a document giving you control, you don’t need any shares. You’ve still got control.”
Ownership percentages represent the distribution of proceeds from any resale, not the responsibilities for day-to-day administration. Richardson said the NRL’s interest in Super League was far more altruistic than most Northern Hemisphere fans understood.
“The NRL clubs and the NRL are not interested in buying this because we see it as a great boom. We’re interested in making it a completely independent setup with outside ideas, outside thoughts to grow the game (and) thoughts and ideas that have been proven.
“We were miles behind AFL … 10 years ago. Now we’re the number one and going forward every year.
“The deal that Peter V’landys has done is a phenomenon in sport in Australia and it will get better. This is the opportunity to take that to England and it’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
“It’s not about making money. It’s not about owning the game. We all own the game.
“But you’re not going to come in here without having operational control over what you do because you need to install things that you believe can make the game a success … with the clubs’ input, obviously, as they are in the NRL.
“At the end of the day, it’s a television sport now. It’s an entertainment sport and we’ve got to start focusing on that and we need to do it now.”
While Richardson is primarily representing four NRL clubs and other interested parties in discussions about investing in Northern Hemisphere clubs, he did meet with ARLC and NRL executive chair before flying out for London last week. He is not here, he said, to get the so-called “NRL Europe” over the line and would not representing V’landys before the clubs, Rugby League Commercial or the RFL.
“No, Peter’s done most of the work with that. Peter’s been working on that. I met with Peter before I left.
“We’re confident in the position we’re in and I think it will happen. That’s the first thing. The second is: once it does happen, how is it structured? How do we set it up because it has to be done straight away?
“Let’s be brutally honest: we’ve got clubs falling over, especially in the lower divisions. My idea was that there were too many teams originally, when we sat down two years ago. But pushing forward, I don’t think any of the Super League clubs would be under threat to lose their spots.
“I certainly think that from the NRL’s point of view, they will want to expand. There’s no doubt that London is a major part of that. Certainly France. I know that Peter’s very very keen to upgrade and assist France wherever possible because he sees it as important to what we do in the game and so do I.
“Back to the clubs (in) lower (divisions), they get a percentage now of what the game makes. That percentage will go up, not down. Because we’ll earn more money.
“What you’ve got to remember is everyone saw doom and gloom with the NRL coming in, for the NSW Cup and the Queensland Cup. They’ve now never been stronger. England are buying players hand over fist from the Queensland Cup because they can see the value of the players.
“The NRL has always been about development and bringing players through. Well, the development system here needs money spent on it. “
