The NRL claims it doesn’t have the funds to meet a demand from clubs for the annual grant to be raised to $6 million in 2012.
As the battle for a larger slice of rugby league’s money pie intensified on Wednesday, NRL clubs backed away from claims they could form a breakaway competition if their requests weren’t met.
But they did warn the future of some clubs would be at risk if the grant – which currently stands at $3.85 million – did not rise substantially, and they were willing to stand together in the fight.
Just two of the 16 clubs currently make a profit.
“What the game needs to do is assess what the funding priorities are and at the moment the clubs are at the very bottom end of the funding priority,” Wests Tigers chairman Dave Trodden told AAP.
“Everyone gets their money before the clubs get their money.
“You can’t have a business that’s got 16 departments, 14 of which are making $30 million losses annually.
“All the clubs did was make the very obvious point that if we’re going to be viable long-term, something has to change.”
The NRL released a statement on Wednesday afternoon saying there was no way it could match the demands of the clubs.
While there is plenty of debate over whether the new independent commission will be up and running by its proposed November 1 start date, the NRL said handing out funds ahead of the commission’s implementation was not feasible.
“It would be completely unrealistic to saddle the commission with club grants of $6 million that simply can’t be funded at this stage,” the statement read.
“Ultimately the club agreements underpin stability in the game and the funding for the clubs themselves.”
At the moment the clubs are refusing to sign those agreements.
They denied their demand was some sort of threat, but rather a realistic summation of the situation they faced.
The licence agreements they were asked to sign set out funding for the next six years.
“The clubs were asked to comment on it (the license agreements) and all that the clubs did was to comment on it,” Trodden said.
“(We are) saying ‘the amount of money that you put in that document is insufficient for clubs to be financially sustainable, and if you want to know how much it’s going to cost for clubs to be financially sustainable, this is the figure’.”
The bid would represent an injection of more than $34 million for the clubs, but the NRL claims it has only $18 million in cash reserves.
Trodden insists the money is there – one area of saving being the cost duplication that will be eliminated when the independent commission comes in.
Asked if he was confident clubs would get a better deal, Trodden said:
“We’ve got to get a better deal for next year.
“You ask Cronulla how they’re going to get through next year if they don’t get a better deal.”
Having been through the Super League war that ripped the game apart in the 1990s, Australian skipper Darren Lockyer said the game could not afford another division.
“We did that 15 years ago and it was a debacle so I don’t think we’ll go down that path,” Lockyer said of a potential breakaway competition.
Lockyer was confident the commission along with the new broadcast deal it strikes for the 2013 season would solve many of the game’s financial issues.
“I think we need to know the number that comes in with the TV rights before we start distributing it out,” Lockyer said.
“To me that sounds like the easiest and simplest way to do it.”
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