![\"Arsenal](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/52c2b8046da09c4ebac13b49756c5c30bba77fc1bbb9df2455bb2d1638d9c753.jpeg\")
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Arsenal and Tottenham played a preseason friendly at Kai Tak Sports Park in Hong Kong back in July.Credit: Getty<\/p>\n
McManus has long held reservations over a partnership with the NRL \u2013 not because of a lack of faith in Peter V\u2019landys and Andrew Abdo, but because of the way the conversation has been conducted over the past 12 months.<\/p>\n
The owners of Wigan and Warrington, Mike Danson and Simon Moran, met with NRL officials in Las Vegas earlier in the year, while Solly and Wests Tigers CEO Shane Richardson have also been working on potential partnership arrangements.<\/p>\n
But in London on Tuesday afternoon, the NRL met face-to-face with RFL counterparts for the first time and agreed to continue negotiations over a partnership that would see the NRL take managerial control of the sport in England.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is why I\u2019m very happy \u2013 that it\u2019s governing body to governing body, because that\u2019s the only way that this will be done,\u201d McManus said.<\/p>\n
![\"ARLC](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/b8847a5498da8617619f33eb153d88383046bbfc.jpeg\")
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ARLC chairman Peter V\u2019landys (right) with NRL CEO Andrew Abdo.Credit: Getty Images<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t want to hear from Shane Richardson. We don\u2019t want to hear from Blake Solly. We don\u2019t want to hear from Wigan. We don\u2019t want to hear from Warrington. We want to hear from the leaders of the game in both jurisdictions.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s the way the world works. That\u2019s the way business works. That was a major step forward yesterday. We agreed totally that you need independent governing bodies. There\u2019s no resistance about that whatsoever, and we want two independent bodies speaking to each other in the first instance.\u201d<\/p>\n
McManus was against the idea of a breakaway competition dubbed NRL Europe \u2013 the brainchild of Richardson, who has proposed a 10-team competition that includes two teams in France.<\/p>\n
The St Helens chairman will not support a rebel league, and was put at ease by V\u2019landys\u2019 assurances to key figures in the London meeting.<\/p>\n
![\"Jubilant](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/5852cf7c9ca99de1620fe4320712ce605ccb9017.jpeg\")
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Jubilant St Helens players celebrate their dramatic win over Penrith in the 2023 World Club Challenge.Credit: NRL Photos<\/p>\n
\u201cSome sort of breakway competition here would be terminal,\u201d McManus said. \u201cIt would cause huge resentment and risks. We\u2019re not strong enough to sustain that. The good thing is Peter V\u2019landys put that to bed yesterday. He said that\u2019s not going to happen. And that\u2019s all we wanted. All the sensible people talking to each other.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had a club meeting a couple of weeks ago and everybody in that room was keen for us to progress and discussions to take place.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Abdo and V\u2019landys are in England for the Ashes series and are due to fly home after the second Test at Liverpool this weekend.<\/p>\n
They plan to open dialogue with clubs and stakeholders when they return home about buying a potential share in the Super League.<\/p>\n
One of the key sticking points for the NRL is a desire to have complete managerial control. It wasn\u2019t opposed to by the RFL and McManus has back the introduction of an independent commission to rule over the sport.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s becoming clear that the NRL want management control, that\u2019s the big condition,\u201d McManus said.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo I think the first step is to determine exactly what that means, what the management would be, what it would determine, what the new management\u2019s vision is to improve the sport both in England and improve the game worldwide.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cEamonn has great contacts and understanding of Hong Kong from his time there. If there was an opportunity…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":250304,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-250303","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nrl","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-national-rugby-league","11":"tag-nationalrugbyleague","12":"tag-nrl","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250303","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=250303"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250303\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/250304"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=250303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=250303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=250303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}