Wolf-hunt: How Toronto went from bold dream to bad failure

BY JOHN DAVIDSON

“WINNING STARTS in the front office” – so said legendary coach Jack Gibson.

Gibson might have been dead for more than a decade but his sayings, methods and beliefs are still just as relevant in rugby league today.

It’s a shame Toronto Wolfpack never took notice of Gibson’s wisdom.

Toronto has been an interesting and eye-catching experiment in expansion, a bright spark that has promised a lot and has undoubted huge potential –  but has been badly managed and now appears close to complete implosion. The myth, hype and hope that has surrounded the Wolfpack –  and continue to – has added more fuel to the overflowing fire.

The doubts now over Toronto’s survival and its possible demise are also inextricably linked to rugby league’s continual failure to expand successfully and – simultaneously – its inability to learn from its own mistakes. 

This never-ending cycle of boom-bust ventures, which seems part of its DNA, from Paris, Gateshead, Perth Reds, Adelaide Rams, Gloucester, Oxford and Crusaders, remains today with no lessons learnt, and no improvement for the next time an ambitious expansion project is launched. 

If you don’t learn from history, you are doomed to repeat it and this sport never fails to shoot itself in the foot. It’s Groundhog Day without the laughs or Bill Murray.

But back to the Wolfpack.

When the prospect of a new club in Canada emerged in 2014 and then gained traction in 2016, there was amazement and skepticism. A Canadian side playing in the RFL structure of competitions? Surely not.

But to Toronto’s credit, thanks to the vision of founder Eric Perez, it happened and they convinced the RFL and the clubs to let them into League 1. The catch? The Wolfpack would not take any central distribution money from the RFL, and they would have to pay all the costs for visiting teams to fly and stay in Canada to play away games.

This is where the concept was seriously flawed.

There is some dispute whether Toronto agreed to never accept central distribution funding from the RFL or whether they agreed to not take it for a period of three to five years. 

Numerous sources I have spoken to suggest that the Wolfpack agreed never to take a share of the Sky money. This has proven to be a glaring mistake and one that Toronto has constantly tried to fix for several years – but to no avail.

A mythical broadcasting deal for North America, that could deliver Toronto millions, has not yet materialised and may never do in the current broadcasting climate. 

This has meant as the Wolfpack went up the divisions – from League 1 to the Championship to Super League – their costs have gone up and up as they spend more on players each year and still have to cover the costs of visiting teams. 

At the same time, they continue to receive no money apart from what they generate from their own home games, sponsorship and merchandise.

Owner David Argyle recently revealed he has spent $30 million (Canadian) – roughly £17.6 million – since the club was founded in 2017. Argyle has been reported as being both a billionaire and a multi-millionaire in different publications but his exact wealth is not known.

Regardless, that is a hell of a lot of money for a club that continues to lose millions every year with no sight of breaking even.

And you don’t get rich, or stay rich, by blowing through millions year after year with no actual end in sight.

Another issue with the original concept was the decision for the team to be based in England for most of the season. This would save them money on travel but has proved to be hugely problematic as Toronto could not provide UK work permits for its Kiwi and Australian players. 

This underlying issue reared its head in June last year when prop Darcy Lussick was not allowed into England after a run-in with immigration. The visa problem was always there, never resolved, and ultimately it exploded spectacularly in the club’s face last week, as revealed by The Daily Mirror.

Meanwhile, on the field the Wolfpack were firing on all cylinders from day one.

In 2017 they breezed through League 1, grabbing promotion with 20 wins, one draw and one loss from just 22 games. Part-timers proved no competition for the hotshot full-timers in black.

That year they had a roster of 29 players and only four were North American – Canadian Quinn Ngawati and American Ryan Burroughs, Joe Eichner and Tom Dempsey – despite promising to field many local players. 

Eichner played just one game for the club before leaving, Dempsey three, while Burroughs and Ngawati both left at the end of 2018, but Ngawati recently rejoined the Wolfpack this year.

Coach Paul Rowley had said before the debut season had started: “Approximately half of the team will comprise experienced RFL players to provide the infield leadership and code skills with the balance of the squad to be drawn from a very large pool of talented and athletic North American rugby players, collegiate Canadian and American football players as well as former CFL and NFL players”.

A loose relationship with the truth would continue to pervade the club through its short history.

For example, Toronto continues to call itself the world’s first transatlantic professional sports team. This is despite history showing that the World American Football League had a transatlantic competition with teams based in America, Canada and Europe way back in 1991.

Another example is its claims of driving junior development locally without actually backing that up.

The hype employed often never quite matched up with reality – another historic rugby league trait.

In 2016 the Wolfpack’s director of rugby Brian Noble told The Daily Telegraph in Sydney that the club expected to sellout its home games at Lamport Stadium and would also sell 3000 ‘FuiFui MoiMoi’ wigs.

“Fui’s exactly the type of player North Americans will love,” he said. “I’m tipping we’ll sell about 3000 Fui wigs in the first couple of weeks he’s here.”

There is no evidence that the club ever sold that many wigs and the average attendance at Lamport, which has an official capacity of 9,600, was 6,992 in 2017.

No matter. 

The rugby league community was on board and so was the media. Coverage across the board was intense, the headlines continuous. The pom poms were out.

Of course, off the field the odd problem began to surface.

Forwards MoiMoi, David Taylor and Ryan Bailey were all sacked in January 2018 after an incident at a pre-season camp in Portugal. Taylor, a high-profile signing from the NRL, went without playing a single game.

Earlier that same month Bailey had escaped a ban after refusing to provide a sample for a drug test. Bailey was adamant the water he had drunk, been given to him by the doping control officer, could have been contaminated and he would therefore not provide a sample.

The prop, who was represented by the law firm Brandsmiths, got off but this would ultimately not be the end of the matter.

Change also came off the field in early 2018 with the exit of CEO and founder Perez and director Adam Fogerty. Fogerty is a close confidant of former RFL chief executive Nigel Wood and he fronted the club’s own TV documentary series. Perez later went to work for Bradford, a club Wood part-owns.

Both the departures of Perez and Fogerty were never officially announced by Toronto or properly explained. This appeared curious and I wrote about them at the time here. 

Apparently a new structure was created where general manager of commercial Scott Lidbury was in charge of all non-rugby matters. (Lidbury later left his role at the club, in January 2019, and declined to comment when contacted about the actual reasons for his departure).

However, on the field things rumbled on. 

Toronto entered the Championship in 2018 and again the results were impressive. They won 27 games, lost six and drew one. All seemingly appeared well, as wins were notched and the club continued to make high-profile long-term signings from Super League and the NRL, which garnered attention while also dramatically increased the wage bill. 

But in the Million Pound Game, disaster struck. Despite being huge favourites and at home, the Wolfpack lost 4-2 to London Broncos and failed to go up to Super League.

The writing was on the wall for coach Rowley before that playoff final. He was replaced by former Leeds Rhinos boss Brian McDermott. 

It was around that time that severe cracks started to appear in the Toronto facade. I covered these in a series of pieces over the space of a year for League Weekly newspaper.

In December 2018 the club faced court action over unpaid legal fees worth hundreds of thousands of pounds. A petition to wind up the Wolfpack’s UK company was made by Brandsmiths, who had represented Bailey. It is understood after starting the legal action Brandsmiths were eventually paid what they were owed.

This was just the beginning.

That same month Toronto paid its players late. It claimed it was just a short-term issue in a story on the BBC in January 2019. 

Now we started to see a pattern emerging.

In February of 2019 I revealed that Salford Red Devils had launched legal action against Toronto Wolfpack to recoup £20,000 it was owed from the transfer of its fullback Gareth O’Brien. It is understood Toronto eventually coughed up the dough.

Before that, in August 2018, Wakefield owner Michael Carter had gone public on Twitter in his battle to recoup the money his club was owed for selling winger Mason Caton-Brown to Toronto.

Wakefield would not be the last club to chase the Canadian outfit for money they were owed and hadn’t been paid on time. Warrington had to do the same over Joe Westerman, as did Castleford over Gadwin Springer, according to several sources.

I understand Sheffield Eagles also had to threaten legal action to be paid a bill for travel when they played in Canada.

Then in June 2019 the visa problem burst to the surface with the Lussick incident.

It was a warning sign of things to come.

I wrote extensively about the problems that were emerging and what the future may hold for Toronto. You can read it here. 

At that point former Toronto player and welfare manager Reni Maitua actually tweeted: “Three years they’ve had to sort this out with immigration! What a joke. 

“Good luck signing overseas players in the future… You think overseas players will mov to the other side of the world, some with families to risk being deported for not having a visa?

“I loved my short time with the club its management is poor #Facts.”

Unfortunately the problem was never resolved despite Maitua’s warning.

The next month the Wolfpack’s UK general manager Martin Vickers admitted on TV programme Rugby League BackChat that he couldn’t rule out the club facing immigration issues in the future.

This was also around the time that the club’s announcement earlier that it had bought a minority stake in League 1 London Skolars worth around £100,000 fell apart.

 The PR statement at the time called it a “major boost to the sport of rugby league”, and it even received prime-time coverage in The Guardian. 

But Skolars never actually received any money. 

The club’s majority shareholder, Hector McNeil, later told League Weekly months later: “No money has been received from Toronto Wolfpack. There is a written agreement and the terms have been breached by that but I trust David Argyle to come through.

“We can’t be patient forever though and are disappointed not to have Toronto’s investment as yet. We really needed it mid-season last year as was promised and I think we would have gone up.”

It was more smoke and mirrors.

McNeil later walked away from the Skolars, and when asked by Steve Mascord in April this year if the collapse of the mooted deal with Toronto was a significant event in his decision, admitted: “I think that sort of speeded it up because obviously we did the agreement with David (Argyle) and, you know … I do think that he did it with the best of intentions and I think always in the back of his head he wants to honour the agreement. 

“There’s a signed contract, right? So in a way, Skolars could go the legal route and try and get that money from him but I don’t think that’s the right thing to do.”

Then in August the Wolfpack were hit with a lawsuit in Canada from television company iLink Media Group. It claimed the club owed it more than £180,000 from broadcasting Toronto games in 2018.

In September it was revealed that kit supplier ISC were also owed money by the club and the players had their wages paid late for the month of August.

The financial situation continued to worsen in 2019, despite the club dominating the Championship and losing just one game out of 29.

A spot in Super League was secured with a convincing 24-6 win over Featherstone Rovers on home soil.

There were doubts over whether Super League would even let Toronto into the top flight, but ultimately their promotion was rubber-stamped.

The Wolfpack then managed a major coup with the impressive signing of cross-code star Sonny Bill Williams in November last year.

The capture of the All Black and former NRL back-rower rightly received global press and acclaim. Williams was snared on a massive, mouth-watering two-year deal reportedly worth £2.5 million a season.

The Wolfpack would enter Super League with a tremendous bang. Outwardly, everything seemed good.

Behind the scenes though, the façade was crumbling.

Toronto started the season with just 22 players available. The salary cap was maxed out with players on ‘overs’ (more money than they could get elsewhere), so they were forced to leave Chase Stanley in Australia and unregistered so they didn’t go over their cap.

McDermott publicly advocated for salary cap relief from the RFL, despite many experienced figures in the sport criticising the club for signing players on bad deals, while they later brought in Tony Gigot as an amateur ‘triallist’, exploiting a loophole.

They were then smashed in their first six Super League fixtures, failing to win a single game.

They were beaten 28-10 by Castleford on their debut, defeated 24-16 by Salford, dominated 32-10 by Wigan, edged 32-22 by Warrington, thrashed 32-0 by St Helens and then whooped 66-12 by Leeds. The performances got worse and worse as they sat slumped at the bottom of the ladder.

Toronto’s only saving grace came on March 11 in the Challenge Cup when they ended their 2020 drought by defeating Huddersfield 18-0.

Then Covid-19 hit and the season was mothballed.

Now, with the events of the past few weeks, the Wolfpack may not play another game ever again.

Who is to blame for all this? That is not so clear.

It is wrong to blame only the global pandemic for all of these issues and for Toronto pulling out of Super League in 2020. The financial problems have been exacerbated by the current climate, undoubtedly, but they were also there long before anyone had heard of the Coronavirus.

Some of the claims from creditors who are still owed money by the club have not even come to light yet. 

I know of at least two companies – and I suspect there are more – who allege the Wolfpack have also not paid them for work they have completed for the club. They are scared to go public for fear of retribution, and are considering legal action.

Toronto’s questionable business practices have become something of urban legend.

There are also allegations that employees of the club in the front office in Canada are also owed money, along with some ex-players.

A current Toronto player told me last week: “They didn’t pay the young staff in the office…. Everyone leaves because they don’t get paid or they just see what they’ve all agreed to and go ‘shit what’s going on here?’ It’s madness.

“Over in Canada they try their hardest. There’s some really good people working for the club but there’s only about four or five of them. But they’ve never had anything to do with rugby league before. 

“It’s so understaffed. I feel like they need some ex-rugby league people in there working.

“I can’t see this club being there in a couple of years unless someone wants to come and invest in it. I don’t know who would want to invest in it at the moment. 

“They complain about the TV money, but at the end of the day they signed it. So once you sign something, well…

“Signing Sonny hurt them [as well]. I’m not taking anything away from Sonny, he can only take what he’s been offered, but he got paid a lot of money.

“I heard at the start that Argyle put in £10 million or £12 million that was gone in a year. They’ve obviously just had a lend of him. 

“I think Argyle’s had great intentions but he’s just been robbed blind and now he’s in over the top. I think he had a pretty good opportunity last year to sell the club to the people who own the Maple Leafs and the Raptors but who’s going to buy a sports team in this environment? No one.”

This account has been backed up by several other sources and is a sobering tale of mismanagement and negligence.

Again, it comes back to the fact the warning signs have been there some time. The flaws were there at the start. But no one acted or appeared to notice.

The silence around them has been deafening. The situation has not been helped by a fawning, cowering media. It has not been helped by inactive, idle governing bodies.

If rugby league is to successfully expand in North America where is the detailed strategy? Where is the support? Where is the long-term vision? It has been found badly wanting.

The RFL’s Canadian expansion was outsourced to one wealthy man, David Argyle, to do as he saw fit, burning through more than £17 million for which he now has nothing to show. Both sides are culpable for this.

The events of the past few week have been a PR disaster, one that continues to gather pace. Businesses have been affected, the mental health of players and staff impacted, a broadcaster put out, the image of a sport tarnished again.

The tragic case of the Toronto Wolfpack leaves us with many questions unanswered as to why this was allowed to happen and what can be done to prevent a repeat.

However, this is rugby league.

As usual, spin and cheerleading reigns. Truth and transparency are rare.

For once, reality and facts should not  ebglossed over or ignored. I am, for one, sick of the scandal and denialism.

If you enjoyed this piece, sign up to Patreon RugbyLeagueHub.com Long Reads to read similiar pieces every week for just £1 (AUS$2).