BY STEVE MASCORD
YOU’LL remember that in the cliff-hanging ending to last week’s episode, Leeds chief executive Gary Hetherington said it was important that the RFL take a leadership role in any changes that are about to occur in the British game.
But isn’t there an obvious danger that the RFL’s own authority is about to be usurped?
“Well it could be,” Gary says after a bit of a pause. “And if it is, that will be a failure of theirs. This is a good test of the RFL board in terms of their ability to manage and lead the game.
“That’s the whole game and Super League is clearly a significant and major power broker within the game. “And it should be in (the RFL’s) interests, the fact that this debate is going ahead. They can’t become a bystander. They can’t sit on the sidelines just to make a note of what might be said and done.
“They’ve got to be absolutely at the heart of the process and to be leading it as well. So I think it’s a big test for Brian Barwick and Ralph Rimmer and all the board of directors of the RFL and also the executive as well.”
While we’re on the executive, it’s probably a good time to bring up the departed CEO of the RFL and Super League, Nigel Wood. There have been reports that Wood received a staggering £500,000 payout from Red Hall and that he has a three-month consultancy contract with the RFL.
“First of all, Nigel’s been there for, I think, 18 years – both as finance director and chief exec and I think he’s made a major contribution to the game. He’s been at the heart of many of these changes and many of its advances.
“There’s no doubt that all the clubs are in a much better position than they were when he started the job, financially and from a governance point of view and in so many ways.
“So I think he can personally look back over his time in the game … he’ll no doubt have some regrets and some disappointments, that not everything has been developing in a way that he might have hoped.
“But I think he can certainly look back on his time as a time of significant change and know that he, himself, has been at the heart of it.
“So, a lasting contribution and not least with his involvement in the international game as well … it’s encouraging he’s going to continue in that role.
“I don’t know what his financial arrangements are in terms of coming out of the game but I think it’s a very positive thing to be utilising his experience and expertise going forward, whether that’s as a consultant … to just lose all those skills overnight would be a real problem for the game, I reckon.
“You would certainly look to retain his involvement. He actually, single-handedly, provided the game with a £200 million pound broadcast deal which I think was a great deal for the clubs and, indeed, for Sky. He should get recognition for the role he played in that advancement.”
Got a lot to squeeze in here. The next point was touched upon in a BBC interview Gary did on the opening night of the season. In this answer, he gives the fourth estate a bit of what-for. The question? Is there a possibility there will be 14 teams in Super League next year?
“No. None at all.
“On that point: once again, there is a load of speculation and a lot of it comes from really piss-poor journalists in my opinion … journalists who should know better, who should have a grasp of the facts rather than just a fantasy.
“We’ve got a real problem in the game because we don’t appear to have any journalists in any of the media with understanding and it’s them who are peddling a lot of the rubbish that is talked about. It’s the misinformation provided by journalists that’s a real problem for our game and it’s because they don’t do their homework and don’t get to know the facts.
“In terms of the league structure, when we did the latest broadcast deal, which all of the clubs bought into, the Super League and the Championship and the League One and the RFL all brought into, and that’s what they signed up to….
“It’s what Sky television signed up to as well.
“The structure we’ve got is the structure we’ve got and no one party can unilaterally decide we’re going to have something different next year. Or the year after for that matter.
“If all parties come together and say ‘look, we don’t like what we’ve got, we’d like it to change this is what we want it to be’ then they would to the RFL, the RFL would listen to all that and they may be persuaded to say ‘OK, we’ll throw our wait in behind that as well’.
“Then you need Sky to say ‘we hear what the game’s telling us. It’s not what you sold us but we might be persuaded to change as well’.
“So all those things would have to come together.
“The fact that two or three clubs or more might decide that they prefer something different is purely their own personal view. It can’t carry any authority in any way. For things to happen constitutionally, there has to be a process.”
OK, quickly, Gary thought up the World Club Series. Leeds only got to play in once. Now, even though there are six teams playing in a WCS-type tournament this weekend, no-one has bothered to re-float the concept. Disappointing, no?
“We nearly didn’t have a World Club Challenge – and that would have been, in my opinion, the end of the inter-hemisphere challenge.
“All Super League clubs are bound by their agreement to compete in it. That’s not the case with NRL clubs. It’s a failure of the NRL to have the authority within its own competition to deliver that which has led to its demise.”
Hetherington takes solace in the fact that the World Club Series is happening this year, almost by accident. The day after Leeds play Melbourne, South Sydney are taking on Wigan and Hull meet St George Illawarra.
“I’m looking upon those games as world series games and I’m going to be attending those games.”
