Todd Greenberg was a marked man the moment Peter V’landys became the Australian Rugby League Commission chairman in October.
That move cemented V’Landys’s remarkable transition as the self-described wog from Wollongong who now rules two sports: rugby league and horse racing, where he is still the chief executive of Racing NSW.
The relentless V’landys has been able to do both jobs because of his political skills. He has the ear of politicians, corporate leaders and media identities, and works those relationships hard. Falling out with V’landys is also like getting hit in a ball-and-all tackle — a collision and a cloud of dust leaving those on the receiving end dazed and sometimes confused.
Yet he has a remarkable track record of success and navigating crises, from beating the bookmakers in the High Court and surviving equine influenza. V’landys also runs a lean operation in racing. No big bloated head offices. Every cost is watched closely.
All those factors ultimately sowed the seeds of Greenberg’s downfall, which arrived on Monday with him quitting as NRL chief executive after weeks of speculation that he would be sacked or at least not have his contract renewed later this year.
Greenberg was once considered a wily political operator, surviving a series of scrapes with NRL club powerbrokers, outlasting previous chairs and CEOs.
He met his match in V’landys, who wanted to know why NRL headquarters was spending $181m a year running the sport, why it wasn’t making more money off the field, why it had no assets, and why it was perennially at war with itself.
Which is why he became the voluble centrepiece of the battle to stay on the field when COVID-19 hit, and its continued attempts to get started again as early as late May.
Broadcasters went to meet V’landys — in his Racing NSW office — not Greenberg. Greenberg fell out with broadcasters and with the clubs. He had few fans inside the game in the end and is succeeded, at least for now, by commercial director Andrew Abdo.
V’landys continues to say he does not want to be the NRL’s executive chairman, yet he is operating exactly like an executive chairman.
Like the enthusiastic but nuggety forward he once was as a teenager in Wollongong, V’landys will keep carting the ball up for the game, calling for the football, grinding away relentlessly.
He will also ignore any critics of his dual roles across two sports. Never mind the process, it is all about the outcome — the points on the scoreboard. Which rugby league needs more than ever.
V’landys will be supremely confident he can lead the most political of sports through yet another crisis. He clearly did not think Greenberg was up to it.
Few would bet against V’landys succeeding in rugby league.
Racing may wonder where he is at times though.
