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Wests Tigers chief executive Grant Mayer admits there’s a possibility the joint venture might be forced to move from Leichhardt Oval after Balmain Tigers surrendered their lease on the venue.
The NRL club had an agreement with Balmain to host four fixtures a season at the venerable old ground.
However, the Leichhardt council has taken over the lease after the junior club said they couldn’t afford the $250,000 a year demanded to make the ground a multipurpose venue.
Mayer said early indications from the council were there would be no fee increase, but said until he had confirmation in writing, there was no guarantee the round seven clash against Canberra would go ahead at the ground.
“I’ve been exceptionally clear to them that we are not in a position to pay one cent more than what we paid in 2014,” Mayer told AAP.
“This late change is not our issue. To be fair to council, they have done a great job fixing a lot of things and done some work to put a lick of paint on the old girl.
“But from a pure commercial point, I am not committing to anything until I see a lease.
“But as soon as they see where we are coming from, I expect us to be there for the round seven game.”
The Tigers host South Sydney at ANZ Stadium on Friday, and there are options to increase the number of games there during the season, as well as play more games at Campbelltown should the parties fail to reach an agreement.
But Mayer admits a decision to move away from the Tigers’ spiritual home would be taken only as a last resort.
“It’s not remotely a hope, not at all,” he said.
“We have membership packages in the system and it would be a pretty big contingency to change things.
“But the reality is we’re not in a position to be financially disadvantaged by a change in management rights.
“There are always options … venues are always keen to host … but we don’t want to get to that stage.
“We want to give the council every chance to give us what we have asked for and that is to cut and paste the lease we had with Balmain last year.”
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