Remember Super League’s historic trip to Las Vegas? The hype, the excitement and the feeling that after years of trying, perhaps British rugby league had finally broken a glass ceiling and could be set for a bright future? That all unfolded only three weeks ago, but given what has happened since, it feels like a lot longer.
Few sports do off-field issues quite like rugby league, but even by its own ridiculous standards, these are unique times. It is perhaps pertinent to start with Salford Red Devils, given their very existence has appeared under threat of late. They have twice been placed in special measures by the Rugby Football League over the winter, the latest coming when their new owners failed to pay their players on time in February, days after a takeover of the club that had fuelled optimism.
Related: No wages and little clarity: what next in the Salford Red Devils fiasco?
Clarity is desperately needed from the club’s new owners. Their CEO, Chris Irwin – who has been left to front up to the media – insists March’s pay will not be an issue as vital funding trickles in from overseas. But those financial incidents could now have an impact on their IMG grading, which determines which league a club are in, later this year, which in turn could leave them in danger of relegation.
But will the involvement in rugby league of IMG, the sports rights giant, even be a thing come the autumn? Staggeringly, the notion of one of the game’s 12 elite clubs failing to pay their players on time is not the most outrageous thing that has happened in recent weeks, with yet another boardroom crisis engulfing the RFL and threatening to undo all of the good work done lately.
For the third time in under a decade, rugby league will be subject to a review of the professional game. In 2017, the clubs decided it was time for change and they paid the governing body’s CEO, Nigel Wood, more than £300,000 to leave early. They brought in Robert Elstone and went through a review of the game. But by 2021, he had gone.
The clubs then, in 2022, unanimously approved a 12-year strategic partnership with IMG, which included, naturally, a review of how rugby league was operating. IMG, which is paid about £400,000 to act as rugby league’s partner, may now be pushed out after the clubs – yes, them again – decided they wanted more change at the RFL.
Their plan? Oust the RFL chair, Simon Johnson, and bring back Wood – now the chair of Bradford – on an interim basis to lead … a strategic review of the professional game. Can you spot a theme? After eight years and seemingly endless reviews, the clubs, who now hold the power after giving themselves the right to bring back Wood, seem to be throwing the cards up in the air and seeing how they land.
The optics surrounding Wood’s return are terrible enough. You do not have to delve far to find a quote from an owner demanding it was time for change when Wood was on his way out, only to now be lauding his return as gamechanging. St Helens’ owner, Eamonn McManus, said in 2018: “No one can credibly say that Super League and the game of rugby league in this country has in any way strengthened or improved over the last decade; quite the contrary I’m afraid.” Now he says: “There could be no better qualified or motivated person than Nigel Wood to grab the game by the scruff of the neck.” It feels a move of pure regression. But the problems run much deeper than one man.
Along with Johnson, three more members of the RFL board quit, to leave just one man, the CEO, Tony Sutton. In a bid to remain quorate and comply with Sport England’s Code for Sports Governance, an interim board was appointed: a sticking plaster, in effect. Failure to adhere to that code could lead to huge financial ramifications. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport, to which rugby league owes about £4m in Covid loans, is also watching closely.
“Given our investment and partnership with the RFL, we will work with its leadership to ensure public money continues to be used responsibly,” Sport England told the Observer. This is a sport lurching from crisis to crisis, with the clubs holding too much power. British rugby league desperately needs strong, stern leadership – whether it is Wood or someone else.
The hope was that Australia’s National Rugby League would step forward. Its chief executive, Peter V’landys, has forged strong relationships with clubs such as Wigan and Warrington – who both abstained on the Wood vote – and indeed with Johnson. That has united the two competitions closer than perhaps ever before, and talk was really beginning to brew of an NRL investment in Super League.
That may still happen. But the Observer has been told that the key figures in Australia are deeply unimpressed with yet more drama at boardroom level when the focus should be on the product. It remains to be seen whether any deal will collapse but you only have to look at International Rugby League’s recent statement over Johnson’s departure for a clue.
IRL’s chair, Troy Grant, said Johnson had been key to rebuilding the international board after “a telling period of selfish amateur administration, lack of vision and strategy and poor governance”. The previous chair of IRL? Nigel Wood.
Perhaps Wood will be the answer. The clubs seem to think he might be and, at a time when rugby league clubs are reliant on wealthy owners more than ever, they have a right to have a say. But if it feels like deja vu, then it probably is. At some point, someone beyond the clubs has to grip the game and show effective leadership or in three years, we will be back here again.
