@joel The NRL will take the franchise PV will not take this lightly the Tiger emblem is gold in the sporting arena just unfortunate the fools running the club do not see it , that’s the end game Imo . Burgess and his mates will be left with nothing and deservedly so !
they have a club in Brisbane in East's tigers that can take the emblem already humming along and more financial clout that dolphins. The emblem woukd not be lost it would thrive as East Brisbane Tigers and give Qld another team vlandys and nrl probably want
they then split the Macarthur region up from a junior sense or they let western suburbs magpies come back into the comp.
then gives the nrl 20 teams
if that happened I would have a new hated team in the magpies
Wests Tigers Podcast - Talking everything Wests Tigers since 2018!
good to see nrl and PVL are at least looking into this gs at HBG
not sure if anyone can post the SMH article
Peter V'landys via SMH:
The NRL has vowed to launch an investigation into the events that resulted in four independent Wests Tigers directors including chairman Barry O’Farrell being axed from the board and left the future of chief executive Shane Richardson under a cloud.
O’Farrell had called on the NRL to intervene after describing the sackings – which were announced by the Holman Barnes Group, the club’s 90 per cent shareholder – as a “brain fart”.
“We have been approached by a number of parties to look into the situation and we will,” Australian Rugby League Commission chairman Peter V’landys said.
“We will look into it. I’m not saying they have done anything wrong, but naturally we are concerned.
“A number of parties have expressed concerns and we want to safeguard the Wests Tigers fans. That’s my prime aim. We are looking at it at the moment. I’m not saying we will do anything, but we’re reviewing what’s gone on.”
Under the club’s convoluted ownership structure, Wests Tigers fans have no mechanism to affect change at board or management level.
“We are there for the fan, and we’re going to protect Wests Tigers fans,” V’landy’s said. “The people making these decisions must understand Wests Tigers fans are paramount - not politics.”
The Wests Tigers are a laughing stock again. A joke. A symbol of rugby league ineptitude. All the good work chair Barry O’Farrell and chief executive Shane Richardson have done over the past 12 months has been undone by the Holman Barnes Group, who have decided they need to wrest back control of a club that became an embarrassment on their watch.
Let’s revisit history for a moment. The Tigers have gone more than a decade without playing finals football. They have languished in mediocrity for as long as anyone can remember.
Before this season, they had won three successive wooden spoons. They were going nowhere fast. Then O’Farrell and Richardson took control and the Tigers started to look like a rugby league club again.
They turned a profit. They secured funding for Leichhardt Oval and Campbelltown Stadium. They made some key signings and showed significant improvement on the field.
Most importantly, they had an air of stability. When was the last time you could say that? Now, with Christmas fast approaching, the club is once again at war.
O’Farrell is gone, the independents are too and it seems only a matter of time before Richardson follows them. If he has any brains, he won’t be hanging around.
Why would you? Remember, this is the same Holman Barnes Group that has been wracked by internal politics and investigations in recent times.
Inner West mayor Darcy Byrne, who helped save Leichhardt Oval, called on the NSW government to intervene.
“This is bizarre and out of keeping with basic corporate governance standards,” Byrne wrote.
“Loyal and long suffering Wests Tigers fans deserve better than this. Our team is competing in the most professional rugby league competition on earth.
“But our head office continually operates like an amateur committee for a park footy team. “Petty and short sighted governance of Wests Tigers has been holding our club back for far too long.
“I’m calling for the NSW Government to intervene to fix the undemocratic and seemingly improper governance of the Holman Barnes Group.
“That’s what the fans want, and that is what’s needed for Wests Tigers to survive and thrive. “The current system, in which tens of thousands of members of Wests Ashfield have no real democratic say at all, is improper and unjustifiable.
“We’ve finally got things moving in the right direction on the football field. Tigers fans can’t afford backroom brawling to undermine our football team’s long-awaited recovery in 2025.”
What must Jarome Luai be thinking right now? Luai, in an interview with this masthead only last month, made note of the Tigers’ history when discussing the clauses in his contract that allowed him to leave in 2027.
As Luai said, the Tigers don’t have a great track record. You can say that again. Richardson had been working hard in the background to convince Luai to take the clauses out of his deal but we’re tipping that doesn’t happen now.
No-one could blame Luai for having one eye on the exit. If you’re in charge of Perth, you’re certainly asking the question.
“Tigers haven’t had the best track record,” Jarome Luai says as he talks about what comes next for him at the Wests Tigers
It’s all so petty. Holman Barnes board members apparently didn’t like that the new jersey was ‘too Balmain’. Spare me.
The truth, at least in the eyes of some in the inner sanctum, is that the Western Suburbs Magpies fraternity want their club back.
They have the money and the power in the relationship. They got the baseball bats out on Monday afternoon as they savaged the board and suggested they had been kept out of the loop on key decisions.
If that is indeed the case, they may be better off looking within. After all, they had two representatives on the very same board.
Two board members who apparently voted in line with their Tigers colleagues when it came to stadium strategy and jerseys.
There is a reason the Tigers haven’t played finals football in more than a decade. Self-sabotage has invariably been at the heart of all their failures.
Now, with some blue sky on the horizon, the Tigers have committed harakiri again.
Brent Read
Wests Tigers Podcast - Talking everything Wests Tigers since 2018!
Peter V'landys via SMH:
The NRL has vowed to launch an investigation into the events that resulted in four independent Wests Tigers directors including chairman Barry O’Farrell being axed from the board and left the future of chief executive Shane Richardson under a cloud.
O’Farrell had called on the NRL to intervene after describing the sackings – which were announced by the Holman Barnes Group, the club’s 90 per cent shareholder – as a “brain fart”.
“We have been approached by a number of parties to look into the situation and we will,” Australian Rugby League Commission chairman Peter V’landys said.
“We will look into it. I’m not saying they have done anything wrong, but naturally we are concerned.
“A number of parties have expressed concerns and we want to safeguard the Wests Tigers fans. That’s my prime aim. We are looking at it at the moment. I’m not saying we will do anything, but we’re reviewing what’s gone on.”
Under the club’s convoluted ownership structure, Wests Tigers fans have no mechanism to affect change at board or management level.
“We are there for the fan, and we’re going to protect Wests Tigers fans,” V’landy’s said. “The people making these decisions must understand Wests Tigers fans are paramount - not politics.”
🤞🤞🤞
Wests Tigers Podcast - Talking everything Wests Tigers since 2018!
Gary Barnier via SMH:
Barnier, whose report into the Tigers’ governance with former NRL chief financial officer Tony Crawford led HBG to recruit the four independent board members in January this year, called on the game to put in place an administrator “to protect the NRL’s ambition to be a global game”.
“This behaviour is not consistent with that, in my view,” Barnier told this masthead.
“I don’t say it lightly, I say it because of my concern that this will disrupt Wests Tigers so fundamentally that it will put them back for another decade.
“As a distant observer, it seems to me there is a continued desire to bring back Wests Magpies at all costs, including the destruction of Wests Tigers if necessary.”
As first reported by this masthead last December, and reiterated by ex-chairman Lee Hagipantelis on radio on Tuesday, concerns exist among some club directors that HGB powerbrokers want Balmain to be removed from the joint-venture.
Barnier said he was not speaking based on anything he learnt in the review but on what he had seen since as a Tigers supporter and during the events of the past 24 hours.
“From a supporter’s position, it seemed to me that the independent board and management had been making good progress, and it’s been reported that because of a miscommunication around a jersey and stadia policy the whole thing has been swept away. To me, that shows an inability to properly govern an NRL club,” Barnier said.
Wests Tigers Podcast - Talking everything Wests Tigers since 2018!
@jedi-tiger NRL intervention seems to be our only hope. But by the time that happens, what damage will have already been done? Richo, Benji, and even players might have already walked.
It’s a fair point. I’m not sure a march on Wests Ashfield would achieve anything, those maggots literally do not care what anyone else thinks and enacting change there is an obvious dead end. The NRL however controls the licence of the NRL club and has shown in the past that they are willing to use their power to enact reform. My guess is that it would be in the form of an independent board requirement at the very least but it could theoretically extend to the removal of our license. They have an obligation to provide a certain number of games to the TV networks under their current deal so that could potentially mean an NRL installed board overseeing the football club. It’s a bit hazy because ownership sits with HBg but the license sits with the NRL. In theory if the HBg digs in then the NRL would need to give the license to a new consortium - this is where the easts tigers conspiracy’s get interesting. It’s a non zero chance that is where we end up.
"The other major problem according to Holman Barnes was a breakdown in communication between the two boards. This despite two Holman Barnes board members being appointed to the Tigers board ensuring they should have been kept abreast of any major decisions."
This is where the heart of the matter is. I don't know Burgess, never met him. But something certainly stinks here.
How can all the board voting be unanimous, yet HBG don't like what's going on, yet the HBG representatives to the WT board are not the ones sacked?? Surely, Burgess must have been playing the WT board. Out of his depth yet acting like the petulant untouchable that he is.
Absolute amateur hour and I hope the NRL takes the licence from them.
My overriding emotion from all this is sadness. Not even angry anymore.
Will wait and see how things play out this week, but I'll likely be demanding a refund on my membership and be done with the club unless they somehow pull this back from the precipice.
HBG is the Holman (Wests Magpies legend, Keith Holman) and Barnes (Balmain legend. Keith Barnes) Group. The ultimate insult to this sorry saga would be any comment from Benny Elias who, in his pursuit of greed, royally screwed the Balmain part of the merger of the 2 clubs. I hope I never see or hear from him again.
HBG have backed Richardson. It's his job to restore calm and stability.My overriding emotion from all this is sadness. Not even angry anymore.
Will wait and see how things play out this week, but I'll likely be demanding a refund on my membership and be done with the club unless they somehow pull this back from the precipice.
HBG is the Holman (Wests Magpies legend, Keith Holman) and Barnes (Balmain legend. Keith Barnes) Group. The ultimate insult to this sorry saga would be any comment from Benny Elias who, in his pursuit of greed, royally screwed the Balmain part of the merger of the 2 clubs. I hope I never see or hear from him again.
the root cause of all this is Benny in my view. His manipulation of the vote to sell the Rozelle club that ended up bankrupting the Balmain club and led to the bailout by Wests Ashfield now means that we left with the HBG maggots soiling our club.
@mercy-rule I believe Richo also required some undertakings from HBG in relation to the creation of the ‘independent’ wests Tigers board and his level of overarching control.
HBG has failed undertakings within a year
Richo is free to do as he will
