NRL 2020: Suburban Sydney grounds big winners in ANZ Stadium backflip
With the ANZ Stadium rebuild scrapped, Peter V’landys is pushing for up to four new Sydney boutique stadiums — and he has a powerful bargaining chip and league legends have backed the call as PHIL ROTHFIELD and JAMES O’DOHERTY reveal.
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Backflip: Premier dumps $810m ANZ Stadium rebuild
So the winner from the State government’s decision to abandon the $810 million ANZ Stadium redevelopment will be Sydney’s suburban grounds.
No decision has been finalised after the government’s budget razor gang made the decision on Friday to walk away from the Olympic Stadium rebuild, in the wake of the body blow dealt to the state’s finances from COVID-19.
But The Daily Telegraph understands the NRL will put a wide-ranging proposal to Premier Gladys Berejiklian.
ARL Commission chairman Peter V’landys is now pushing for three, maybe four, new 18-20,000-seat boutique stadiums at Brookvale, Campbelltown and Kogarah – and will use the NRL grand final as his powerful bargaining chip.
To commit to keeping the premiership decider in Sydney for the next 25 years, the NRL wants something in return.
Otherwise they’ll seriously consider the big-money opportunities from interstate to move the grand final which would be a total disaster for the local economy and tourism already on its knees from COVID-19.
V’landys, unlike Todd Greenberg, has always wanted the government to invest in the suburbs.
He told me last year: “Having families in Sydney attend suburban grounds is imperative to the future popularity of the game. That’s what tribalism is about.
“Suburban grounds have an important role to play and should be upgraded for today’s entertainment venue standards.”
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V’landys would not expand on his thoughts when contacted on Sunday.
“We support the government 100% and look forward to a meeting to discuss our options,” he said.
But there is a view that local stadiums will be bigger drivers of local economic activity in a post-COVID era, allowing a large variety of content ranging from code-sharing football to concerts to cultural fairs and activities.
These new boutique stadiums would give communities the ownership.
Kogarah Oval would be shared by the Dragons, the Sharks, Southern Districts Rugby and possibly Sydney FC.
Brookvale would be a home for not just the Manly Sea Eagles but the Warringah Rats and Manly rugby union clubs. There is even talk of the Central Coast Mariners relocating.
There would be high performance facilities for all junior elite sport.
You go there now and the venue is a disgrace. Terrible old toilet blocks, broken old wooden seats, asbestos on the hill, a shocking playing field. It was out of date 10 years ago.
At Campbelltown, Sydney’s fastest growing area, there is a new A-League soccer franchise, Macarthur FC, plus the Wests Tigers and even an opportunity for rugby union.
Still, the South Sydney Rabbitohs and the Canterbury Bulldogs are not happy.
They’ve missed out on the opportunity to play out of what would have been a world class 70,000 seat state of the art venue with huge commercial opportunities.
The stadium, in its current state, is unsuitable to host weekly NRL games.
The TV broadcasters don’t want a bar of it in its current condition.
The Rabbitohs don’t want to play at the new Allianz Stadium because the vast majority of their members now live in the western suburbs.
The Bulldogs are in limbo.
“We’re incredibly disappointed to wake up to this news,” said their CEO Andrew Hill when we spoke on Sunday.
This Sydney stadium debate has dominated headlines for almost a decade.
The legitimate arguments about the massive waste of money at Moore Park by building a 45,000 seat stadium for their elite members and three clubs that have average crowds under 15,000 – the Roosters, the Waratahs and Sydney FC.
No other NRL clubs wants to play there.
So Sydney will not have a major event stadium to match Suncorp in Brisbane, Optus Stadium in Perth, Adelaide Oval or the MCG.
But at least we’ll have tribalism around the suburbs.
SMALLER COULD TRUMP BIGGER
— James O’Doherty
League CEOs and former players are backing calls for badly-needed upgrades to traditional footy hubs.
Walking away from the ANZ rebuild “presents a good opportunity to redirect at least some of that investment into a few selected suburban venues in Sydney”, Manly Sea Eagles boss Stephen Humphreys told The Daily Telegraph.
“The government is looking to create jobs and stimulate the economy, and directing some money into selected venues would do that, not just in the short term but the longer term.
“Embedding stadiums in certain key areas across Sydney will create multi-purpose venues that the broader community can enjoy for decades to come,” Mr Humphreys said.
Retired Balmain great Steve Roach also backed calls for better local grounds, saying it would be a “great thing for the game”.
Even spending $50 million on each ground would see “a lot of people locally getting involved”. “You’d get a lot of the locals back,” he said.
The ARL has previously pushed for the government to invest more in the suburbs.
However, Western Sydney Business Chamber executive director David Borger said the ANZ upgrade would have had an “ongoing tourism multiplier effect” which was “frankly more significant than smaller projects”.
“It was one of the few projects that’s absolutely ready for a shovel in the ground. It would have created lots of jobs very quickly,” Mr Borger said.
Along with Ms Berejiklian, Treasurer Dominic Perrottet and Deputy Premier and Industry Minister John Barilaro made the decision to scrap the ANZ Stadium rebuild.
The money will be redirected into smaller, job-creating projects across the state and could be spent on small, “screwdriver ready” projects like road upgrades, car parks, social housing and school maintenance.
“Smaller could trump bigger in a COVID world,” Mr Perrottet told The Daily Telegraph yesterday.
The Premier said abandoning the new stadium wasn’t an easy decision.
“The ANZ Stadium was a priority for us, but since the pandemic the priorities have changed,” she said. “We want to make sure we put every dollar we have into job creation and job keeping.”
Originally published as NRL 2020: Suburban Sydney grounds big winners in ANZ Stadium backflip