{"id":522742,"date":"2026-04-10T04:53:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T04:53:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/522742\/"},"modified":"2026-04-10T04:53:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T04:53:13","slug":"abi-ekoku-st-helens-appoint-interim-rfl-ceo-as-chief-executive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/522742\/","title":{"rendered":"Abi Ekoku: St Helens appoint interim RFL CEO as chief executive"},"content":{"rendered":"

St Helens have appointed interim RFL chief executive Abi Ekoku as their new CEO following the departure of Mike Rush in February.<\/p>\n

The 59-year-old former London Broncos, Halifax and Bradford winger took over at the RFL on an interim basis last October.<\/p>\n

Rush stepped down from his position, external<\/a> earlier this year after 27 years at the club, of which 13 were in the position of CEO.<\/p>\n

In a statement, the RFL said its board would meet “in due course to finalise interim arrangements pending the appointment of a full-time CEO”.<\/p>\n

“Excellence, resilience, ambition and flair are the foundations that have made St Helens the most successful club of the Super League era, and I feel profoundly honoured and excited to be entrusted with the opportunity to forge new pathways for engagement, growth and achievement at every level,” Ekoku said.<\/p>\n

“I can’t wait to embrace the incredible energy of our staff, supporters and partners, new and old, as we collaborate to write the next chapter together.”<\/p>\n

Prior to playing rugby league, Ekoku was an accomplished athlete in discus and shot put and represented England at the Commonwealth Games.<\/p>\n

During his playing career he was part of the Bradford side which won Super League in 1997 and was also a Challenge Cup finalist.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"St Helens have appointed interim RFL chief executive Abi Ekoku as their new CEO following the departure of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":522743,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-522742","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522742","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=522742"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522742\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/522743"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=522742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=522742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=522742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}