{"id":343241,"date":"2025-12-12T13:50:11","date_gmt":"2025-12-12T13:50:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/343241\/"},"modified":"2025-12-12T13:50:11","modified_gmt":"2025-12-12T13:50:11","slug":"nsw-premier-chris-minns-explains-why-south-sydney-rabbitohs-wont-return-to-moore-park","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/343241\/","title":{"rendered":"NSW Premier Chris Minns explains why South Sydney Rabbitohs won’t return to Moore Park"},"content":{"rendered":"

NSW Premier Chris Minns has explained the decision to block South Sydney from returning to Moore Park<\/a> for the 2026 season and beyond.<\/p>\n

After spending the past two decades playing home games at Olympic Park, the rusted-on fanbase have been clamouring for the side to play closer to their home base.<\/p>\n

Historically based in Redfern before a relocation to Maroubra, the foundation club has been seeking approval to move home games to Allianz Stadium – the same ground as their arch rivals, Sydney Roosters, as well as the NSW Waratahs and Sydney FC.<\/p>\n

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However, that potential shift has been squashed with the Rabbitohs still in the middle of a contract with Accor Stadium.<\/p>\n

“We don’t want to block anyone, but the club entered into a commercial arrangement out at Homebush for a number of years,” Minns told SEN.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Rabbitohs fans at Accor Stadium\u00a0Getty<\/p>\n

“It would cost taxpayers about $14.5 million we think to break that contract.<\/p>\n

“The reason for that is, once Homebush Stadium knows they’ve got a tenant like South Sydney for home games, they sell corporate suites. They lease out the contract or the concession for food and drink and beverages and everything else.<\/p>\n

“If all of a sudden the government says, ‘I know that they had a five-year contract for Homebush, but we’re not going to do that anymore,’ we then have to pay, probably in cash, with the vendors that we had arrangements with.<\/p>\n

“It’s not my money, it’s taxpayer money. I’d love to be able to do it, grant the request for Souths to move back to Moore Park, but I think the contract’s got to be honoured.<\/p>\n

“The minister’s speaking with South Sydney about a potential way through it, because if there’s an uplift at Moore Park, maybe it can offset the costs at Olympic Park.<\/p>\n

“But it’s a difficult one to navigate.”<\/p>\n

The two rival clubs shared the Moore Park ground until the Bunnies moved west and those at the Roosters have never shied away from reminding them of that<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Minns was also quizzed about potential upgrades for suburban grounds after it was confirmed Leichhardt Oval would receive a makeover in coming years.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Fans watch the Wests Tigers play at Leichhardt Oval\u00a0Getty<\/p>\n

“We’d love to put more money into a lot of these suburban fields, but we’re limited by how much is in the kitty,” the premier said.<\/p>\n

“I know that the Sharks, as well as the Dragons, as well as there’s a big call for funding in Campbelltown Oval and others.<\/p>\n

“We’re happy to look at discrete projects, but as for multi-million dollar, tens of millions of dollars, we just don’t have those funds available.<\/p>\n

“It’s a difficult one, but I’m not on the programme today, unfortunately, announcing a massive funding upgrade for suburban ovals.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NSW Premier Chris Minns has explained the decision to block South Sydney from returning to Moore Park for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":343242,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-343241","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nrl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-national-rugby-league","tag-nationalrugbyleague","tag-nrl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343241","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=343241"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343241\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/343242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=343241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=343241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=343241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}