Predictions it would be up and running before the NRL season began proved wide of the mark, but rugby league’s independent commission has finally been agreed to a day before the 2010 campaign kicks off.
The board of the Australian Rugby League has agreed in principle to a model proposed by its 50 per cent partner in the NRL, News Limited, for the last fragments of the Super League war of the 1990s to be buried.
The Queensland Rugby League had expressed reservations about the ARL relinquishing its 50 per cent voting rights but the board – comprising four NSW members, four from Queensland, chief executive Geoff Carr and chairman Colin Love – backed the move on Thursday.
Insisting relationships between NSW and Queensland “are fine”, Carr said the results of the vote would not be made public.
The commission, largely the brainchild of Gold Coast chief executive Michael Searle, received near unanimous support from NRL club chairmen, chief executives, coaches and players at a meeting in January.
An ARL statement on Thursday said it would be a not-for-profit entity that will include the NSW and Queensland Rugby Leagues as well as the 16 NRL clubs.
The eight commissioners will also be members of the not-for-profit entity.
The 16 NRL clubs, NSWRL and QRL will each have one vote in elections for the commissioners.
NRL chief executive David Gallop is expected to retain his position under the new structure.
“I think the point is there’s a hell of a lot of work to be done and it will be time to celebrate after all that work’s done because it’s going to be quite complex, the detail of this,” Carr said.
“But it certainly was a big step in the right direction.”
Carr said a timeframe was impossible to predict.
“There can’t be, everyone wants to get it right. No one wants to be left with a legacy of a failed structure,” he said.
“We’ve agreed in principle on a model, it’s very important that it takes us (into) the next hundred years so the detail has to be right.”
The next step, Carr said, would be a continuation of the regular meetings between News Limited and the ARL, who assumed joint control of the NRL when the divided leagues came together again in 1998.
“That’s a continuation of the current steps,” Carr said.
“We’ve committed to meet with them regularly to keep it moving.”
Love said the agreement represented a major step forward.
“The ARL believes that the in-principle agreement arrived at today will deliver a truly independent commission to run rugby league,” he said in the statement.
“There is still a huge amount of detail to be worked through but today’s agreement is a major step in the process.
“Both partners have committed to regular meetings to work through each of the points that will need to be discussed and the complex legal agreements that are involved.
“People need to understand there is still a lot of work ahead.”
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