Leading NRL CEO slams Nigel Wood ‘farce’ amidst explosive Super League takeover interview

Wests Tigers CEO Shane Richardson has labelled the return of Nigel Wood to the RFL as a ‘farce’ and has slammed British rugby league’s administrative procedures amidst an extraordinary discussion on a possible NRL investment into Super League.

Richardson was one of the key players that instigated initial discussions between Super League and the NRL over either a possible investment into the competition – or the creation of a new NRL Europe entity.

Talks are continuing over one of those possibilities arising in the coming weeks – and speaking on James Graham’s The Bye Round podcast, Richardson has not held back on what he believes is holding British rugby league back.

He insists nothing has changed from when he was centrally involved with Super League 25 years ago.

He said: “I’m the only Australian to ever serve on the Super League board. There was me, Gary Hetherington, Nigel Wood, Maurice Lindsay and some other bloke. The same people are still there except for Maurice, sadly. Nothing has changed.”

Graham then interrupted to point out Wood had now returned to the RFL before Richardson simply said:

“Don’t even start me on that. I’ve made my point clear on that in the papers in England. It’s a farce.”

Richardson then warned Super League will forever be confined to its roots along the M62 so long as clubs at all levels are given equal voting rights.

That is technically not true – as Super League teams are given double the voting power of Championship and League 1 clubs in Council votes.

But Richardson was just as strong on speculation English clubs want to remove Catalans and Toulouse from the European pyramid.

“They live in that corridor and as long as you have Batley having the same vote as St Helens you’ll have the problems that are there now,” he said.

“The only way they get recognition is because of Wigan, St Helens, Hull and Warrington. Those millionaires, they sit there and think what the hell is happening here?

“When you’ve got a situation where darts is twice the value of rugby league, that tells you how far it’s gone backwards.”

On the French clubs, Richardson continued: “They don’t want them in, no way. Catalans have to pay for all the air fares for teams to go over there.

“Let’s have a broader picture. You can’t think that Batley will bring more fans to the game than Catalans, and that’s the way they think. How are we going to get a bigger pie?”

That led to Richardson admitting plans for a ten-team competition are the direction of travel the NRL appears to be heading in if it wrestled control of the British game.

He said: “Let’s set up a competition and this is the way it’s going to look. You can’t have promotion and relegation, there’s ten teams – eight from England, six certainties, two from France and two based on what the finances are so you don’t have a Salford again.

“It doesn’t matter what Batley do – they’re not getting in it.

“It’s got to be installed so we can discuss the next TV cycle, which are up now if you wanted it to. They’ve got to make a decision very quickly about what’s going on and to be fair, I think Andrew (Abdo) and Peter (V’landys) are all over it.

“It’s more about control than it is the investment. It wouldn’t be an investment to the clubs, because the clubs want the money invested in growing the game.

“The same crap was being dealt in 2000. It’s just history repeating itself.”