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The future of Pride Round, lack of support and the game's drug culture problem: NRL club bosses have their say
Story by The Roar • 5h agoJust days before the 2023 NRL season kicks off, the bosses have now had their say on how they feel the game is going. The Sydney Morning Herald conducted an anonymous survey of all 34 NRL club chief executives and chairmen, revealing a few surprising results.
In part one of the poll results, the biggest eyeopener surrounded the hotly debated Pride Round, with a huge 82 per cent of NRL club bosses admitting they would not support it in rugby league.
57 per cent also said they wouldn’t introduce a Pride jersey at their club, while 38 per cent said they would consider the possibility of a Pride jersey, but only of their players were on board. Five per cent of respondents said they would introduce a Pride jersey at their club regardless of the players’ views.
The controversial topic has been the centre of many debates since Manly’s Pride jersey saga last year, and despite the NBL holding their own version of a Pride Round last month, with the A-League following suit this past weekend, NRL bosses won’t be putting their support behind the initiative anytime soon.
“Given what occurred at Manly, why would you not think that would occur at the other 16 clubs given how many Polynesian players – many of whom are obviously religious – are in the NRL?” one boss told the SMH.
“If the NRL was going to consider such a round, then a round based on inclusivity would be better. You can’t have a Pride Round and promote it as being inclusive if you exclude people’s views of which you do not agree.”
ARL Commission chairman Peter V’landys recently promoted the possibility of a similar concept. The idea of a ‘Respect Round’ promoting inclusivity of everyone was floated around, and did not receive the support V’landys was hoping for. It seems he and NRL chief executive Andrew Abdo are also not feeling the love from the NRL club bosses, with teh pair receiving their lowest popularity rating since taking on their roles.
On a scale of 1-5, V’landys reached his peak during the 2021 season with a score of 4.6. Two years later, that number has dropped to it’s lowest ever of 3.5. Abdo reached his highest mark of 4.4 last year, but has now been give the same poor scorecard as V’landys.
36 percent of club bosses continue to feel unsupported by the NRL, increasing from 22 per cent last year and 16 per cent in 2021. While this number has continued to grow since V’landys and Abdo came into power, it is no where near the disastrous 79 per cent results that previous leaders Todd Greenberg and Nick Weeks received in 2020.
The recent CBA saga was also discussed, with 68 per cent unhappy with the way the NRL has handled negotiations with the RLPA. How long the talks have taken seems to have been the most frustrating part for the club bosses.
Continuing with the negotiations theme, more than half of bosses were also frustrated with how the NRL handled its talks with the NSW government over stadium funding. 54 per cent believed the NRL was played by the politicians after they backflipped on investing in suburban grounds, and forced the NRL’s had to sign a one year deal to keep the Grand Final in NSW.
52 percent believe the decider should remain in Sydney long-term, with 36 percent happy for the grand final to be sold to a different city each year, similar to the Super Bowl.
Club bosses were also asked if they thought their was a drug culture problem in rugby league, with the option of voting for “it’s no different to society” being given for the first time. 64 per cent placed felt that was an accurate description of the game, with 28 per cent saying no and only eight per cent saying yes.
72 per cent also in support of the no fault stand down policy, with the majority of bosses agreeing that the policy has been effective as a deterrent for bad behaviour from the playing group. While there have still be many off-field issues, the general consensus is that it could have been a lot worse if not for this system.
Other results from the first stage of the survey revealed that 62.5 per cent are now happy with the share of revenue from the NRL, with many raising it as a concern last year.
Player agents as well as the relationship between the clubs, players and the NRL were the biggest issues facing the game right now, with both polling 24 per cent of the votes. Junior development received 16 per cent with the current transfer system getting 12 per cent.
24 per cent want changes to the cooling off periods allowing players and club the chance to change to their minds of signed contract, but NRL will more than remain with the current system with 76 per cent wanting it left alone.
While the attempt to play a match in Los Angeles didn’t happen this season, 64 per cent of club bosses support the NRL taking a game to the US next year.
