{"id":634070,"date":"2026-04-27T12:47:18","date_gmt":"2026-04-27T12:47:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/634070\/"},"modified":"2026-04-27T12:47:18","modified_gmt":"2026-04-27T12:47:18","slug":"donald-trumps-billionaire-ambassador-jared-novelly-reignites-australian-basketball-feud-with-nbl-owner-larry-kestelman-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/634070\/","title":{"rendered":"Donald Trump\u2019s billionaire ambassador Jared Novelly reignites Australian basketball feud with NBL owner Larry Kestelman"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Jon<\/p>\n

April 27, 2026 \u2014 3:38pm<\/p>\n

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The feud between Australia\u2019s billionaire basketball barons is escalating.<\/p>\n

Jared Novelly \u2013 the majority owner of the Illawarra Hawks and Donald Trump\u2019s ambassador to New Zealand \u2013 and Larry Kestelman \u2013 owner of the National Basketball League \u2013 have been at loggerheads for some time.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe Australian basketball feud between billionaires Jared Novelly and Larry Kestelman shows no sign of abating.Michaela Pollock<\/p>\n

Novelly owns Crest Sports and Entertainment, which has accused the telco and business mogul of conflicts of interest in his running of the league and queried the distribution of revenue to the competition\u2019s 10 clubs. But earlier in April, a seven-month Basketball Australia independent investigation dismissed Novelly\u2019s formal complaint.<\/p>\n

The investigation, led by former solicitor-general Justin Gleeson, SC, found there was no \u201ccredible\u201d evidence Kestelman had breached the NBL\u2019s code of conduct. Gleeson dealt with the 10 NBL clubs and found no evidence they had been disadvantaged by Kestelman\u2019s management of the league.<\/p>\n

But on Monday, despite Kestelman having been cleared by the investigation, the feud was reignited.<\/p>\n

In a strongly worded statement released by Crest, which is also the Hawks\u2019 parent company, Basketball Australia and the NBL\u2019s public statements on the matter were described as \u201cdeeply troubling\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"IllawarraIllawarra Hawks majority owner Jared Novelly.Dylan Coker<\/p>\n

The report and its recommendations were not made public, and the statement said doing so was paramount. Crest also threatened to again take the case to FIBA, the sport\u2019s world governing body.<\/p>\n

The complaint was initiallty made to FIBA, which referred the conflict of interest allegations back to Basketball Australia, claiming the case was outside its jurisdiction.<\/p>\n

\u201cBasketball Australia and the NBL\u2019s public statements regarding the findings in Mr Gleeson\u2019s report on code of conduct complaints against Larry Kestelman are deeply troubling as they may have misled the public and basketball community by creating the false impression that \u2018Mr Kestelman has done nothing wrong\u2019,\u201d the statement said.<\/p>\n

Related Article\"The<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cHowever, as BA and the NBL are well aware, the truth is that the Gleeson report did highlight the need to ensure governance standards and procedures were at international best practice across all levels of the sport.\u201d<\/p>\n

Crest also alleged that Basketball Australia and the NBL \u201cchose to leave out\u201d of their public statements that \u201cthe report by Mr Gleeson was limited in scope.<\/p>\n

\u201cHad this information been disclosed, it would have demonstrated that many aspects of Crest\u2019s complaint had merit \u2013 particularly given that it had prompted a BA investigation and that BA\u2019s decision to appoint an external expert to lead governance reforms amounts to an implicit acknowledgment of past irregularities requiring correction.\u201d<\/p>\n

When the BA finding was released on April 13, the NBL said it was continuing to rectify any governance issues, and had drafted professor Graeme Samuel, the renowned governance and leadership expert, to the NBL board.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe report by Mr Gleeson also highlighted the need to ensure governance standards and procedures were at international best practice across all levels of the sport,\u201d Basketball Australia\u2019s statement said at the time.<\/p>\n

\u201cBasketball Australia will now lead a project in collaboration with the NBL to ensure these best-practice standards are met in all areas.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis project will be independently overseen by global risk and financial advisory consultant Kroll. A project plan will be developed which is expected to take approximately nine months to fully implement.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The NBL did not wish to comment on Monday, other than adding it was a matter for Basketball Australia. BA, which has a commercial agreement with the NBL, was contacted for comment.<\/p>\n

Novelly hasn\u2019t been alone in airing his issues with Kestelman and the NBL. Outspoken South East Melbourne Phoenix majority owner Romie Chaudhari and Perth Wildcats owner Mark Arena have joined him in raising governance issues.<\/p>\n

In a letter to club owners in March last year, Novelly proposed a $9 million takeover of the NBL<\/a>, and the removal of Kestelman as chairman.<\/p>\n

The NSW Supreme Court last year dismissed Novelly\u2019s bid to access NBL financial documents, though an appeal has been lodged.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Melbourne United head coach Dean Vickerman is exploring a move to Japan, with both parties working towards a potential mutual release from his contract, a league source has told this masthead. The two-time NBL championship coach has two years remaining on his contract.<\/p>\n

News, results and expert analysis from the weekend of sport are sent every Monday. Sign up for our Sport newsletter<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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\"JonJon Pierik<\/a> is a sports journalist at The Age. He covers AFL and has won awards for his cricket and basketball writing.Connect via X<\/a> or email<\/a>.From our partners<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"April 27, 2026 \u2014 3:38pm Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":633608,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-634070","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-basketball","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-basketball","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634070","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=634070"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634070\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/633608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=634070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=634070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=634070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}