The PNG Chiefs are hoping a luxury multimillion-dollar ‘player village’ can attract NRL’s top talent
The NRL's newest franchise has no coach, players or headquarters, but exclusive details reveal how PNG Chiefs plan to become the competition's next superpower.
Rugby league powerbrokers have predicted the PNG Chiefs will become a $100 million juggernaut as the fledgling club prepares to hit the coaching and player market armed with tax-free dollars and bulging corporate support.
And an appetite to become the next Brisbane Broncos or Penrith Panthers.
ARL Commission chair Peter V’landys and NRL chief executive Andrew Abdo were the driving forces behind the $600 million agreement between the Australian and PNG government that paved the way for the NRL’s 19th franchise to enter the competition in 2028.
The clock is ticking though and there is much to do.
The Chiefs don’t have a chief executive, coach or any players. The dirt is yet to be turned on their Centre of Excellence, and the NRL is still in the process of nailing down accommodation to house the players and their families.
They need to be able to sell something. A dream. At the moment, all they have is drawings and designs. That won’t be enough to get the Clearys signature - Ivan, Nathan and Jett are all expected to be targets - on a contract.
If they manage to get a seat at the table with the Clearys, they will need to show them something tangible, starting with where they will live and where they will train.
Abdo wants to have some of those issues resolved before the end of the year, while Chiefs officials focus on shoring up sponsors, players and most importantly pathways.
The Chiefs have global companies lining up to back the bid as they jostle for a place on their jersey. They have a junior nursery that locals believe will one day be the envy of the NRL.
The immediate priority is to harness that local talent in the hope that the team can eventually become self-sufficient. One day, the NRL would like to turn the club over to the PNG fans, whose passion for the game is unmatched.
“We are creating a franchise that will one day in the future - in the near future - have a value of somewhere between $50 and $100 million if you look at multiple clubs around the world and you look at recent transactions in terms of sports franchises,” Abdo said.
“Equally, you’re opening up a whole new market with a large population and an emerging market. There are corporates that want to win the hearts and minds of the people of Papua New Guinea.
“What better way to do that than the national sport of the organisation.
“The idea here is we’re building a member-owned entity. So the people of Papua New Guinea, being the members of the club, will effectively be the owners of the club.
“This will be not dissimilar to what we have with many of our community clubs that run NRL teams at the moment ..… the equity sits with the members as opposed to private ownership.”
The NRL has high hopes for PNG. This is how they plan to realise them.
The Boss Man
Joe Grima is better known in PNG by two monikers - liklik and Boss Man. Liklik translates to ‘small’ in the local Tok Pisin language, a homage to Grima’s diminutive stature.
Boss man is a reflection of the power he wields when it comes to rugby league in the region - even Prime Minister James Marape uses it to refer to Grima on occasions, such is the influence the PNG’s head of pathways has had on rugby league in the country.
Everyone in PNG knows Grima. He’s a rugby league lifer and troubleshooter. The game is his passport. Training and playing gear are his currency.
You want to make stuff happen in PNG, carry some footballs and club merchandise. Doors will open. Grima has been here for more than two years, having previously served on the coaching staff of PNG.
He’s a people person, always with a smile on his face, and comfortable to carry on a conversation with the highest office in the land or the bloke who brings out his food at one of the five-star restaurants we frequent during three days in Port Moresby.
The challenges confronting Grima and Tony Archer - the head of pathways and performance at PNG headquarters - are immense.
When they arrived in the country, PNG had no organised competition for anyone under the age of 13. Games often had to be restricted to 15 minutes because of a shortage of fields.
Training also had to be stopped at a certain time so that the kids could catch public transport and be home before sunset to meet curfews.
They started slow, using a pilot program to get the lay of the land and identify some furtive talent.
That pilot program started with 69 players in one province - there are 22 provinces or states in PNG - training one day a week for eight weeks.
It has now been extended to eight regions. They have 960 boys and girls in their academies training two times a week for 22 weeks. Crucially, they can’t play rugby league unless they go to school. Skip school, and league is off the table.
The tyranny of distance adds another layer of complexity to their work.
Mobile coverage is inconsistent so Grima and his people had to hand deliver letters to the kids who were selected for their academies.
That meant flying everywhere because the roads simply don’t exist. If you want to go from Sydney to Newcastle, you can drive.
In PNG, the equivalent trip requires a plane ticket.
The end goal is to reduce the development gap between young players in PNG and Australia. From the ages of 13 to 18, an Australian player receives an average of 822 hours of development. In PNG, the elite player only receives 132 hours.
That shortfall of 690 hours is what PNG officials want to close.
“We’ll be bigger than the Penrith Junior Rugby League,” chair Ray Dib said.
“We will be the biggest nursery of rugby league in the world.”
It’s not just the players who need to be challenged. Grima wants to light a fire under their staff as well.
“We want to be the Brisbane Broncos here,” Grima said.
“Not because they won the premiership, but because they are the best. We also need to build capabilities in our own staff - they feel that normal is good enough.
“We need to manage them that, ‘No, it is not good enough’.
“We need to reach and maintain the standards that the Broncos have, that Penrith have. If we see something wrong and not at the level we need, if we walk past it, we have accepted it.”
Sheer weight of numbers suggest PNG can’t fail.
If Grima and Archer can harness the talent at their disposal, PNG will be a production line not just for the Chiefs, but for the entire competition.
The sell
While the goal is for PNG to eventually become self-sufficient, there is an acknowledgment that it will take time. The Chiefs will need to buy some experience when they launch, and that’s where the NRL has some decisions to make.
Luring players to PNG won’t be easy. Tax-free dollars will be tempting. But the players, in particular those with families, will want to feel safe.
“I’ve been in there seven or eight times,” Dib said.
“Some years ago I brought my wife and my daughter here with the Bulldogs - we built the school there. Since I’ve been going there, I’ve never experienced, witnessed any concerns.
“But there’s obviously places where you don’t go after dark or drive down certain streets. Wherever you can travel around the world, there’s always a place you shouldn’t visit or go to, especially after dark.”
The NRL is mulling over a number of potential sites for a player village where they would accommodate the NRL squad and their families. This masthead was given a tour of three last weekend
The most likely option would appear to be the Airways Hotel, an 11-hectare site with its own medical clinic, several restaurants, bank and internal car service.
It has 286 security cameras and a guard force, as well as back-up fuel, back-up power and back-up water - power and water have habit of occasionally going offline in PNG.
Players and their families will also have access to a private island - Loloata Island is about 20 minutes by boat from Port Moresby - where they can escape the confines and luxuriate in five-star accommodation at mate’s rates.
It’s impressive.
And there are plans to expand the accommodation at Airways with the NRL in mind.
The Marriott is another option and has the advantage of being closer to the central business district, with views overlooking the harbour.
Again, it’s fully secure and state of the art with plans to expand on surrounding land.
The final option is the Hilton, but it seems the outsider.
It’s big business for the hotels in the running and a massive call for the NRL because if the players and their families don’t feel safe, they won’t come.
The other layer is the cost - rent is off the charts in Port Moresby. But in order to bring it in line with Australia and ensure players aren’t disadvantaged, a trust fund will be set up by the NRL to help bridge the gap.
The remaining piece of the puzzle is the Centre of Excellence, which will be built adjacent to the club’s ground. The PNG government has a commitment to spend upwards of $50 million on the state-of-the-art facility.
It is expected to have a synthetic pitch where the team can train indoors on stifling Port Moresby days as well as accommodation to house promising players.
Abdo wants decisions made before Christmas, so work can begin next year.
“That means that we are hitting 2026 as the construction year, and we’ve seen other Centres of Excellence being built within a year,” Abdo said.
“So that is our game plan.”
The targets
When it comes to coaches and players, Dib wants to chase the best. The cream of the rugby league crop. PNG are not currently in the market, but Dib has approached the NRL for some clarity over whether they can begin signing players.
And they are likely to get the green light once they are officially granted their licence and on the condition that they abide by the same rules that apply to every other club - no negotiations until a player enters the final year of their contracts on November 1.
The dream scenario would be to launch in 2028 with the Cleary clan under lock and key. Penrith coach Ivan Cleary is off contract at the end of 2027. So is his son Nathan.
Jett, who has shown flashes of his ability with the Warriors, could potentially be up for grabs as well. V’landys wants seven-time premiership winner Wayne Bennett involved in some capacity as well. And he will have a decisive say - the PNG constitution says the ARL Commission has oversight on the coach, board positions and the chief executive.
Dib won’t name names, but he makes it clear that the Chiefs want to chase the best of the best. That applies to players and coaches.
When it comes to the best, the Clearys are at the head of the queue.
“I’ll simply say to that - it’s got to be best practice,” Dib said.
“Who’s available? We got to go for the best, no doubt about that. I don’t know who’s off and who’s contracted, what terms.
“The time hasn’t come to that as yet.
“The priority at the moment has been infrastructure - let’s turn soil on the Center of Excellence, players and staff accommodation, and let’s look at the upgrade of the stadium at some time in the future.”
The other player at the forefront of their mind is Cooper Bai, the Gold Coast forward who is the son of PNG legend and board member Marcus Bai.
Cooper Bai is already a household name in PNG. A roar greeted his every touch during the Prime Minister’s XIII game last weekend.
He has the potential to be the face of the franchise and that means unfettered access to corporate support. He’s a strapping, well spoken young man with some of the biggest clubs in the game knocking at his door.
PNG wants to join the party and they can offer him rivers of gold.
“He would be an ideal bloke to bring back to PNG Chiefs,” Dib said.
“He’s definitely on our radar, but there’s also a lot of PNG players playing the Super League as well. There’s some great talent out there.”
The fact that they are still two years away from entering the competition adds another complexity to player negotiations.
If they sign someone now, the player would need to find a home until PNG begins.
“We would be crazy not to engage (with players) but I need to speak to the NRL,” Dib said.
“We’re still two years away and we need to know whether we can sign future contracts.
“If the NRL say we can do that and the player is willing to sign with us - and in the interim play for someone else - we would be crazy not to see who is available.”
The future
Spend some time in PNG and it is hard to see how the game’s 19th team cannot be a success. Their devotion to rugby league smacks you in the face the moment you walk out of the Port Moresby airport - when we touched down, a fan in a native outfit immediately began hitting up NRL officials for tickets to the PM XIII game.
Parramatta star Mitchell Moses was on the same flight and as he walked out of the terminal, his bid to get to the team hotel was brought to a halt by requests for selfies.
There is no avoiding it.
It’s PNG’s greatest strength, but potentially its greatest weakness given the fervour with which the game is followed and the mayhem that stalks NRL stars when they land in the country.
The NRL is betting that it will be a raging success, to the point where V’landys believes PNG could one day be the game’s biggest breadwinner.
“I think PNG has the potential to be the biggest earner for the NRL,” V’landys said.
“You have one sport in the country. Here you are dividing it between 10 sports.
“With 10 million people fixated on just rugby league, it could generate significant broadcast revenue even with low monthly charge for subscribing to the channel.
“It has incredible potential if it is implemented properly.“
Brent Read travelled to PNG courtesy of the NRL.
Seven Wests Tigers threaten to quit if coach walks
