By STEVE MASCORD
ISN’T it funny how different people can be from correspondence to meeting them in person?
From communicating with Colin Kleyweg on Facebook, I imagined the man who is attempting to pilot Red Star Belgrade into Super League to be a quiet, studious, slight, blond-headed Australian of Scandinavian extraction.
The impression comes from his surname and the way he has assembled a steering group made up of former coaches, administrators and players all across the globe.
But when we meet at the Merlin Serviced Apartments near North Lambeth tube in London, I am instead greeted by a big, demonstrative Aussie extrovert (with hair a few shades darker than Nordic blonde).
We retire to an Italian restaurant called Cotto. Apparently it’s only one star but that would be a reflection of its prices, not its excellent food (no discount for a plug in League Weekly, either).
The owner regales us with stories of how Kevin Spacey was a regular customer as I switch on the recorder.
“I was born in Perth,” says the 47-year-old, whose wife Marina is Serbian. “During the mid-eighties, it was interesting when the Winfield Cup was happening and we had the Tina Turner stuff.
“For some reason, everyone around the mid-eighties wanted to buy a rugby league jumper.
“I remember sitting down on a Saturday afternoon watching the ABC and I saw this team in red and green with a rabbit. I thought ‘wow, I’ve never seen anything like that’ and I became an instant South Sydney fan.
“From that point, my love of rugby league grew and grew. I lived in Sydney during the late nineties and 2000s. I remember when we were kicked out of the competition as well, I was one of the people who marched.”
So why Serbia? Why Belgrade?
“We started business in Serbia five or six years ago and we heard about this local rugby league and we thought ‘this is amazing’ and we started looking them up,” Colin explains.
“We’re an engineering consultancy.
“We have good connections in Serbia and after a while we started to meet people involved in rugby league.
“They wanted to set up a State of Origin so we sponsored one of the teams and bought the jumpers. Then we sponsored the World Cup qualifiers and then after that … we want to get involved in something, we wanted to get our hands dirty.”
This where Red Star Belgrade comes into the picture. In answer to your biggest question …. Yes, it’s THE Red Star Belgrade.
“The chance came up to be involved with Red Star Belgrade and we met the two guys who have run that (rugby league club) with blood, sweat and tears since it started,” Colin explains.
“I just felt a similar vibe to what we feel. They really want the club to prosper and grow. We said ‘what would you think of setting up a club that goes into English leagues’. Straight away, very, very interested.
“Yeah, it’s part of the (Red Star) sporting society. That’s one of the great things. Last year, the basketball club which is one of the top four clubs in Europe … they had a couple of young blokes coming through their junior academy system … they’d bulked up too much for basketball.
“We took them on last year. One of the guys has just been selected for Serbia Under 19s.”
Of course, the RFL seems to be looking west rather than east at the moment and Colin is yet to crack it for an official meeting with the soon-to-be denizens of the Etihad Campus.
“If we can show a club can grow from something smaller like Serbia, it’s really going to give impetus to others,” Kweyleg says.
“There’s two clubs in Turkey, there’s four in Greece, there’s clubs starting in Albania, there’s clubs starting all over the place.
“It’s a hard journey for these guys but someone’s got to lift the standard and show them there’s further (you can go) .. an opportunity to earn some money.”
Let’s lay out what Red Star Belgrade rugby league are doing right now.
“The last six months we’ve really worked on our business plan,” our man explains, “because nothing goes anywhere without a robust business plan.
“I don’t expect I’m going to walk into a room and everyone is just going to fall over themselves and go ‘it’s Colin from Red Star’.
“We have to work hard. We have to make sure that we’re improving our result constantly and to show we’re constantly growing our own social media and networks.
“We’re putting in place a plan this week to have … we’re going to charge admittance for the first time because we’re playing the big derby against Partizan. Every week there’s a test for us and every week as owners we demand that we pass these tests.
“Over the next six months, we’ll get more and more discussions when people see we’re serious.”
But what, exactly, is the process for an overseas club to follow Toronto into League One?
“All of the discussions I’ve had have been off the record and I don’t want to put anybody in a difficult position because there’s a lot of change that’s happening,” said Cleywig.
“The timeframe we’ve said is 2021. That’s not tomorrow.
“Once we understand the future direction (of rugby league), that’s when we can start to organise more meetings and have discussions.”
OK, the $64 question: what if League One is cut adrift and goes amateur?
“Obviously as a Red Star person that concerns me but if we’re talking about two Super League competitions of 10 teams each and everything under that is cut loose and amateur, that concerns me from a rugby league perspective!”
So what would this mean for the Red Star bid? “It’s not attractive at all. We wouldn’t do it. We’ll just pull out and we’ll do something else.”
Wow. The two division scenario wouldn’t just exclude a bunch of existing clubs with histories long and short, it would leave potential new franchises like Red Star Belgrade stillborn.
Food for thought.
