Rugby Football League CEO Abi Ekoku admits the governing body are \u2018waiting on the NRL\u2019 to learn what, if any, partnership can be struck up between rugby league\u2019s two big organisations.<\/p>\n
Talks have been ongoing for most of this year, both publicly and privately, about a possible investment from the NRL into the game in Britain to try and revive its fortunes.<\/p>\n
However, nothing has materialised thus far \u2013 and during the Ashes, NRL supremo Peter V\u2019landys warned that Super League was heading for a \u2018train crash\u2019 if it did not change its ways and hinted at the need for major restructure of its governance.<\/p>\n
But Ekoku has insisted that the ball is now in the NRL\u2019s court about whether or not there will be a productive partnership between the two hemispheres. Speaking after the RFL\u2019s Council meeting in Wakefield on Tuesday, the interim CEO of the governing body appeared to suggest nothing was imminent.<\/p>\n
However, he did say that the more the two major bodies can be aligned on things like broadcast deals, the better it would be for rugby league: potentially leaving the door ajar for more talks.<\/p>\n
Ekoku said: \u201cIt wasn\u2019t discussed (at Council). There was reference to it under the international discussions. It was a positive discussion we had with the NRL and it\u2019s nice they have an interest in the game. But we\u2019re waiting on them to see what the next step is. They said they were going to look at a variety of things and see what might work in terms of a partnership.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was talk of takeovers but it\u2019s nothing like that at all. Rugby league as a sport should be the easiest sport to have harmony in because there\u2019s two governing bodies.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf the positivity of those discussions is that you\u2019re having dialogue with your main partner and competitors, and both of you have the growth of the game at its heart, then the more we can do the better. The greater the alignment, the better. It\u2019s ludicrous we have one sport with three sets of rules and those things will align over time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ekoku also admitted that he was hopeful next year\u2019s World Club Challenge could lay the platform for more positive talks, but said that if nothing happens soon, the RFL will have to press on with its own plans.<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cThe World Club Challenge is the next cross-hemisphere event which has sold out and it\u2019s great to see. Hopefully it becomes the property it could always have been. We have to move forward independently anyway because we have our own timeframes for things.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you can have a harmonised broadcast deal \u2013 then fantastic. But if you can\u2019t you still have to plan your season. They have grown their competition brilliantly; they\u2019re tier one in Australia.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can never be tier one here: it\u2019s a different market. Our market is significantly more competitive than theirs but it\u2019s much bigger in Europe. It\u2019s a lucrative market but there\u2019s more tension. We can\u2019t be tier one or tier two because football occupies both of those. You\u2019ve got to understand your reality of position in market.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rugby Football League CEO Abi Ekoku admits the governing body are \u2018waiting on the NRL\u2019 to learn what,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":308254,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-308253","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-rugby","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=308253"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308253\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/308254"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=308253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=308253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=308253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}