The email that sealed Todd Greenberg’s fate at NRL

Monday didn’t pan out the way Peter V’landys had envisaged, with the NRL now searching for a new chief executive.

After four years in the job, Todd Greenberg decided the time had come to step down as chief executive of the NRL. Picture: Getty Images

ARL Commission chair Peter V’landys woke bright and early on Monday morning, his schedule already mapped out. V’landys was expected to spend the day in crunch talks with the game’s broadcasters, namely Foxtel chief executive Patrick Delany and his Nine Network counterpart Hugh Marks, as they thrashed out what remained of the NRL season and what it might be worth.

A day that was destined to shape the game’s immediate future instead ended with the commission commencing a search for a new chief executive.

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The landscape changed dramatically when V’landys found an email on his computer from a club chief executive bemoaning the lack of response to a handful of questions put to head office.

For days they had been waiting. And waiting. And waiting. Fed up, they emailed V’landys and in doing so, may have inadvertently delivered the final fatal blow to Todd Greenberg’s career as chief executive of the NRL.

They weren’t the first club to complain. The Warriors had done so late last week after failing to hear from anyone at Rugby League Central. Others had raised concerns as well. They stopped going to Greenberg and started going direct to V’landys.

They had a gutful. The world has changed. The clubs believe the NRL should answers to them. Yet they were getting the cold shoulder from Rugby League Central and their despair was growing.

They wanted scalps and on Monday they got the biggest one of all. The buck ultimately stopped with Greenberg, although others are bound to follow him out the door as the cull of the game’s executive team begins.

Chief commercial officer Andrew Abdo has been appointed as acting chief executive and he can’t be ruled out as a long-term successor given he is respected by V’landys and the clubs.

He also has the support of the broadcasters, a crucial selling point in the current environment. Greenberg’s relationship soured dramatically with the Nine Network, to the point that he was frozen out of talks with the game’s commercial partner.

The outbreak of COVID-19 had bought Greenberg some time, but when Nine boss Marks delivered a savage assessment of the NRL, the writing was on the wall.

Even more so when V’landys spoke of pacifying the game’s commercial broadcaster rather than taking the fight back on behalf of his chief executive.

Abdo is the early favourite for the job if he wants it. Club bosses Dave Donaghy, Blake Solly and Paul White have also been mooted as potential chief executives, although Solly insists he is committed to South Sydney.

Notably, White was among the first chief executives to send a message of support to Greenberg on Monday. “In his tenure as NRL chief executive, he has overseen another period of significant change and it is has also been necessary to deal with some significant challenges our game has faced,” White said.

“Todd has always maintained a drive and a passion for improving the way our game was viewed by the Australian community.”

Greenberg had the remainder of this season on his $1.2m contract – he earned another $200,000 in bonuses – and is likely to have received a payout of some description for the remainder of his deal.

V’landys has ruled out becoming the new chief executive and who could blame him given the way the code has chewed through CEOs in recent years.

Greenberg was the third since the ARL Commission’s inception in 2012. Under his watch, revenues exploded but so did spending, a bugbear of the clubs.

“It has been my great honour and privilege to be the (chief executive) of the NRL for the last four years,” Greenberg said. “Despite the variety of challenges and pressures I have loved every single minute of the journey.”

Abdo, who grew up in South Africa and attended university in Cape Town and Pretoria, steps into the breach. He will front the ARL Commission on Tuesday for the first time as NRL chief executive and gave some insight into his thinking on social media when he used one of his accounts to talk about his philosophy on his job.

“The way a sport connects with its fans is becoming increasingly important,” Abdo said.

“Driving the commercial returns for the NRL and developing innovative marketing strategies that tell the great stories of the game is how I spend my work day.

“I am motivated by knowing that commercial success will lead to greater reinvestment back into the game, which means more kids playing all forms of the game and more communities positively impacted through our game.”