It’s time for real change at Wests Tigers. The fans deserve nothing less

Jack Gibson, perhaps the greatest coach in the history of rugby league, famously proclaimed that “winning starts in the front office”. The last three dismal years at Wests Tigers, including a trifecta of wooden spoons, are the ultimate proof of Gibson’s point.

As has been on public display once again this past week, the central impediment to the Wests Tigers NRL team’s recovery on the football field is poor governance in the boardroom.

Wests Tigers CEO Shane Richardson (left) and Inner West Mayor Darcy Byrne at Leichhardt Oval.Credit: Edwina Pickles/SMH

A New Year’s Eve coup against the board of the Wests Ashfield Leagues Club (the majority owner of Wests Tigers) has once again thrown the club into administrative chaos. While the rest of Sydney was getting ready to watch the fireworks, a majority of the club’s board members launched an internal missile instead. Four of the seven directors issued suspensions to the other three for periods of up to eight years.

The 2025 season marks 20 years since the Tigers’ magical run to capture the NRL premiership. It is 14 years since we last played finals football. Last year our club finished last in five separate competitions across juniors, women’s and men’s. Quite a feat, but not the sort of record you want to be breaking.

The incredible thing is that Wests Tigers fans have remained so devoted. Against our better judgment, we remain among the most passionate and loyal fans in all of rugby league. Television ratings for the team are still strong and the slightest sign of a winning run brings fans out in their orange, white and black colours all over Sydney.

But after so many years on the losing side of the ledger, members and supporters have simply had enough of the backroom brawling that keeps bringing our club into disrepute.

So, at a time when Wests Tigers CEO Shane Richardson’s leadership, the arrival of star player Jarome Luai and a much-improved playing roster had generated hope of a revival, yet another round of petty disputes and negative headlines still holds back our club.

How and why does this keep happening? The short answer is that the Wests Ashfield Leagues Club is governed by an antiquated and anti-democratic system that puts power over the organisation’s affairs in the hands of a tiny number of unelected “debenture” holders. These 18 people, who are appointed for lifetime terms, then select five of the seven board members from among themselves.

The leagues club’s 27,000 members are able to elect only two board members, locking them out of any real say. Tellingly, these two directly elected board members – Rick Wayde and Tony Andreacchio – have now been expelled from the board and the club. It’s bizarre that in 2025 any registered club has such a closed-shop system of governance. Little wonder that the Independent Liquor and Gaming Authority has launched an investigation into this dysfunction. Loyal and long-suffering Wests Tigers fans deserve better than this mess.

Our team is competing in the most professional rugby league competition on earth, but our club’s governance looks like the amateur committee for a second-rate park footy team.

Worse still, there remains a handful of dinosaurs on both sides of the joint-venture absurdly pushing for Wests Tigers to be disbanded and the Wests Magpies and Balmain Tigers re-established. It’s one thing to be a one-eyed supporter but 25 years after the merger they are still blindly fighting the war.

The good news is that this latest round of boardroom intrigue and seemingly endless division has galvanised fans to say enough is enough. A range of Wests Tigers supporters’ groups have come together under the banner of Wests Tigers Unite to demand reform of the outdated board structure and new standards of professionalism.

An increasing number of longstanding Wests Ashfield board members are also bravely speaking out to say the system of centralised control has had its day. A new, democratic governance, in which the club’s members and Wests Tigers fans have a real say, and can make the board accountable, is desperately needed.

Our club is at a crossroads. We cannot turn back to the past, and staying on our current trajectory will mean Wests Tigers just continue to fall further behind our NRL rivals. Or, as Jack Gibson said: “In football, if you are standing still, you’re going backwards fast.”

It’s time for real change at Wests Tigers. And this time, the fans will not accept anything less.

Darcy Byrne is mayor of Inner West Council.