Can V’landys’ silver tongue entice the WA Premier back to the bargaining table?
Wth each passing day it becomes clear the ARL Commission chairman’s strongarm tactics have killed the Western Bears franchise. Roger Cook holds the whip hand – but can Peter Vlandys save the deal?
I’ve been told V’landys personally reached out to West Australia Premier Roger Cook this week in a desperate bid to salvage the ill-fated bid.
Neither V’landys nor Cook’s office would comment on whether they had spoken, which is in stark contrast to the verbal stoush between the pair in the past three months.
V’landys’ aggressive approach that has made him so successful on the east coast in horse racing and rugby league evidently don’t work in the west.
That’s certainly the view of NRL club bosses, not that many would ever say it because they’re more than happy to snap up the big, fat club grants V’landys provides them.
It’s probably the view of most of the rugby league media, not that many would criticise the NRL because of the big, fat stories that get leaked to them.
Last October, the NRL told a consortium led by Cash Converters boss Peter Cumins “your bid is in the bin” when it didn’t put a licence fee in its submission.
Instead of working with the people in WA most passionate with rugby league, V’landys figured he could screw dollars out of the state government – just as the AFL has done with Tasmania.
Yet he met a formidable opponent in Cook, a feisty terrier with a genuine love of rugby league but an even bigger one for his state.
Cook was furious when a News Corp story dropped on February 12 – right in the middle of the state election – about the Western Bears being on the verge of receiving an NRL licence.
The story speculated that the NRL wanted $320 million over a decade from West Australian taxpayers – exactly the NRL number that had been raised in confidential discussions with the Cook government.
“I have been talking to the WA Premier and I am very comfortable and confident with where we are at,” V’landys told The Courier Mail’s Peter Badel.
Cook might have been an unbackable favourite for re-election, but he didn’t appreciate facing questions each day on the campaign trail about the exorbitant cost of an NRL franchise during a cost-of-living and housing crisis.
He repeatedly told Perth media “not a cent” of taxpayer money would be paid to the NRL. He isn’t backing away from that promise.
Soon after Cook was returned to office, strategically leaked stories from the NRL emerged about the deal being on the brink of collapse.
That old trick: the same thing happened on the eve of Magic Round last year when V’landys said he was prepared to walk away from the Albanese government’s $600m pledge to fund a team in Papua New Guinea.
A deal was finally struck in December with V’landys declaring that day the Western Bears was “two to three weeks away” from being announced.
Now, it’s on the verge of collapse.
Perhaps the best piece of rugby league fiction out of the NRL concerns the AFL “sabotaging” its attempt to set up shop in the west with a good old-fashioned “smear campaign”.
The line goes that the AFL instructed Seven West owner Kerry Stokes to use his various media platforms in the west to condemn an NRL team while putting pressure on the government to fund it.
It’s a gobsmacking claim given how much media manipulation happens in the NRL. Some of the lies and distortions spread during collective bargaining agreement negotiations with the Rugby League Players Association in 2023 were breathtaking.
Furthermore, it was reported on Sunday that the NRL wanted to look at rundowns for magazine programs NRL 360 and 100% Footy.
Privately, the AFL laughs at the conspiracy theories being floated by the NRL.
It has no control over Stokes, but the reality is the AFL welcomes an NRL team in Perth, just as it does Port Moresby, because the more the NRL concentrates on new markets, the more the AFL can sink its teeth into Brisbane’s sprawling west, all the way to Ipswich and Rockhampton, in the new battle for hearts and minds.
The Queensland Rugby League and NRL clubs have continually warned the NRL the region is under attack from the AFL.
The NRL insists a third team in Brisbane is “not on the agenda”, probably because the Broncos draw so much talent from that area.
Instead, the NRL continues to bulldoze ahead with a team in WA, hopeful it can carve out a niche fanbase in a city and state besotted with AFL. The West Coast Eagles is the richest football club in the country, while the Fremantle Dockers aren’t far behind.
The WA government understands the economic benefits of having an NRL team in Perth. There’s also an influx of people from New Zealand, South Africa, and the eastern states moving to WA, meaning more “rugby people” are looking for something to watch.
But he won’t be bullied into it, especially if it’s going to cost too much.
As it stands, the NRL and the government are miles apart in terms of funding.
The NRL wants $12m a year over a decade for grassroots football, along with a $200m upgrade of HBF Park, while the WA government is prepared to provide $5m a year over five years with no upgrade of HBF Park because it received a significant refurbishment for the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup.
Talks are continuing and it remains to be seen if V’landys’ silver tongue can entice Cook back to the bargaining table.
It’s been suggested that Cook wants to wait until later in the year to make an announcement. The NRL wants a deal done quickly because it’s about to crank up broadcast negotiations,
Cook holds the whip hand. He’ll be in the chairman’s room at Optus Stadium on Saturday for the NRL’s double-header but has declined an opportunity to speak.
“We’ve made our position to the NRL very clear, and that is any deal must deliver value for WA taxpayers,” Cook said in a statement provided to this column. “Since then, we’ve had some positive discussion, and those discussions are ongoing. We won’t be making any further comment until those discussions conclude.”
V’landys will be at Royal Randwick in his role as Racing NSW chief executive for the second day of The Championships.
Gout’s albatross
Reports about Gout Gout’s demise have been greatly exaggerated.
Quite ridiculously, doubts were cast on the freakish 17-year-old following his shock loss to Lachlan Kennedy in the 200m at the Maurie Plant meet in Melbourne late last month.
At the national champs in Perth on Thursday, he broke 10 secs twice – albeit wind assisted – on his way to victory in the under-20s 100m.
He lines up against Kennedy in the open 200m on Sunday, no doubt ready to avenge his defeat last start.
The over-reaction to the loss was breathtaking. Claims that Kennedy was “unheard of” were ignorant at best, and disrespectful at worst.
Rugby union enthusiasts would surely have known Kennedy was a talented representative winger on the radar of several talent scouts before he decided to focus solely on sprinting. He ran in the men’s relay for Australia at the Paris Olympics.
So far this year, he’s broken Australian and Oceania records in the 60m and 100m, including silver in the 60m at last month’s world indoors.
The match-up between Kennedy and Gout fascinates because of their contrasting styles: one brutalises the track through power, the other bounces off it like he has springs in his feet.
Privately, Gout’s camp felt he was “rusty” at the Queensland Championships last month when he won the under-20s 200m in a wind-assisted time of 19.98 secs – the fastest time ever recorded by an Australian runner in the 200m in any condition.
As anyone who watched Bruce McAvaney’s absorbing Spotlight profile of Gout on Seven will attest, Gout understands the gifts he’s been given and won’t waste them.
His greatest burden, it seems, will be managing the expectations of others.
Abuser is no angel
Excuse me if I don’t golf-clap Argentine Angel Cabrera on his return to the US Masters.
Having won the tournament in 2009, he has a lifetime exemption to compete. As a self-confessed abuser of women, he shouldn’t.
Serving 30 months in jail for the physical and sexual abuse of one former girlfriend and the assault of another wasn’t enough for the Augusta National Golf Club to ban him.
Cabrera was this week welcomed back into the fold like he was returning from war.
Perhaps the most disappointing comments came from Australia’s Adam Scott, who beat Cabrera in a playoff to claim the green jacket in 2013.
“I’m thrilled he’s going to be back joining us this year,” Scott said. “I can’t wait to see him. It’s a happy thing for me.”
Happy? Really?
Tournament boss Fred Riley described the domestic violence convictions as “legal issues”.
Contrast that reaction to that of former chairman Billy Payne before the 2010 Masters when, unprompted, he launched into Tiger Woods for having multiple affairs behind the back of his wife, Elin.
“He forgot that with fame and fortune comes responsibility, not invisibility,” Payne said. “It is not simply the degree of his conduct here that is so egregious, it is the fact that he disappointed all of us and, more importantly, our kids and our grandkids. Our hero did not live up to expectations.”
One of Cabrera’s partners claims he locked her in a cupboard when he was playing a tournament in Texas because of his jealously.
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It might be sacrilegious to criticise anything Peter V’landys does or says, but with each passing day it becomes clear the ARL Commission chairman’s strongarm tactics have killed the Western Bears franchise.