{"id":952316,"date":"2026-11-04T13:12:12","date_gmt":"2026-11-04T13:12:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/952316\/"},"modified":"2026-11-04T13:12:12","modified_gmt":"2026-11-04T13:12:12","slug":"nrl-news-2026-perth-bears-appoint-tony-rea-as-ceo-after-exit-of-anthony-de-ceglie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/952316\/","title":{"rendered":"NRL news 2026: Perth Bears appoint Tony Rea as CEO after exit of Anthony De Ceglie"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former North Sydney Bears<\/a> captain Tony Rea has taken over as chief executive of the fledgling Perth Bears<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The NRL<\/a>\u2019s 18th club confirmed in a statement on Wednesday that Rea had been appointed as the successor to Anthony De Ceglie, who quit in October<\/a> after a tumultuous 17 months in the job.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

New Perth Bears chief executive Tony Rea.\u00a0Supplied<\/p>\n

Rea played 120 first-grade games with the North Sydney Bears between 1988 and 1994.<\/p>\n

He captained the club to a preliminary final berth in 1991.<\/p>\n

He is also a former chief executive and coach of the London Broncos, and a former coach of the ACT Brumbies.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are three distinct phases in our club\u2019s journey: start-up, build and develop,\u201d Bears chairman Ben Morton said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have successfully navigated the start-up phase and Tony brings the leadership needed for our build phase.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a known concept in WA, aligned with our resources sector where companies move from exploration to construction and then production. Getting the leadership right at each phase is critical for success.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a board, we are delighted with Tony\u2019s appointment.<\/p>\n

\u201cTony, as CEO, will bring our high-performing teams together as one. Tony has the leadership attributes and experience needed.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Bears have struggled on the recruitment front, largely because of the remoteness of Perth and the competition posed by the PNG Chiefs<\/a>, who have the luxury of being able to offer tax-free dollars.<\/p>\n

Talk of a rift between head coach Mal Meninga<\/a> and assistant Ben Gardiner has also plagued the club in its early days.<\/p>\n

But in Rea, the club has a fresh injection of Bears DNA and a highly respected operator.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Tony Rea in 1991 during his time as North Sydney Bears captain.\u00a0Craig Golding\/Fairfax Media<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve sat in almost every seat in a club: player, captain, development officer, head coach, director of rugby and board member,\u201d Rea said.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy job as CEO is not to do any one of those jobs \u2013 but rather to use that experience to lead our professional team together as one, committed to success.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Perth Bears have assembled an exceptional and professional team.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey have achieved so much in such a short amount of time and I look forward to leading them as CEO into this next chapter.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur hungry and determined squad has been curated under the wise leadership of Mal Meninga. Our task is to ensure they have every support needed to be the formidable team we know they can be.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former North Sydney Bears captain Tony Rea has taken over as chief executive of the fledgling Perth Bears.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":952317,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-952316","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\/952316","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=952316"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/952316\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/952317"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=952316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=952316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=952316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}