mikey
Well-known member
Smoke n mirrors that don't disguise anything
Breaking news: HBG takeover
- Thread starter BlackWhiteGold
- Start date
Yes but do you or anyone else on this forum really know the truth ?
It’s bullshit mate . It’s because the independent board wanted to govern itself , and was looking to get KPIs put in to allow that to happen . As Macca said on the Faithful podcast , maybe the independence was a way to force a hostile takeover of the license forcing HBG out , and they got wind of it . Either way its situation no change as a wests tigers fan
I realise that is how it seems, but it is all speculation without factually knowing the truth.
tigahhh
Well-known member
his insta too: @wildmandenny
They admitted in the press release/ video … it’s facts . You just have to look for them
jrtiger
Well-known member
be mindful of spraying Burgess in the DMs. if anything he'll just dig his heels in further. better off going thru official channels.
balmain boy
Well-known member
It's a crappy attempt at spin. Nothing less. HBG had a member on the buses at all times. They were privy to what all independent board members had access to.
They also don't need to be consulted on every decision the club makes.
They ran the vin for a decade, losing millions of dollars and failing every season. After the independents and Richo came in we suddenly made a profit. Now Denny wants to destroy the club and bring back the magpies.
No. This evil dictatorship must end. There are no excuses for removing intelligent professionals so that he can get his way.
Banning everyone who opposes him at HBG and WT is absolutely appalling and surely breaks many laws on accountability, responsibility and transparency.
Denny needs to be forced out. ASAP.
And the club sold as soon as possible
I suppose it depends what you define as a “big decision”. If the board expects to be consulted on regular operational matters constantly then nothing gets done or players sign with other clubs while the board is busy trying to get Victa to sponsor the club.
You know what’s the shittest thing about all this . They do it in early December because they know everyone is busy with presents , closing up work , Christmas parties , travel etc . It’s a full dog act , because if they did it mid season there would be signs, banners , protests all over the joint … it’s cowardly to the max .
Plus it’s against the law . And whilst LinkedIn is social media , it has your work and everything about you attached to it . You can ruin your life all for a piece of shit , who I’m guess won’t have too many attend his funeral .
And this is the issue. A ton of us who have been members for 10, 20, 25 years are fed up and ready to pack it in. This club exists because of and for us, not these guys. If you lose the hardcore fans in droves what hope is there?
balmain boy
Well-known member
I think we do need to organise a rally outside West Ashfield soon. Megaphone,banners, protesting. If there's hundreds of people in attendance chanting Denny out! Sell the Wests tigers etc that would gather momentum.
But do it have have a dozen people show and it's an embarrassment for us.
But do it have have a dozen people show and it's an embarrassment for us.
mikey
Well-known member
Ahh, the Devils advocate; strange considering you have reached your own conclusions.
Betterdays22
Well-known member
Hows the gaul of the club to call me this morning asking about my membership!
Poor fella on the phone didnt sound particularly enthused
Poor fella on the phone didnt sound particularly enthused
Don Kershane
Well-known member
Same call today
BlackWhiteGold
Well-known member
Club at war: Why the latest Wests Tigers’ self-sabotage could cost them Jarome Luai
The Wests Tigers have become a laughing stock once more, but the team’s newest instance of civil war could cost them the services of their superstar Jarome Luai, writes BRENT READ.
December 2, 2025 - 12:09PM
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.
hammertime
Well-known member
I like Read again. Well summed up
BlackWhiteGold
Well-known member
SMH: Barry O’Farrell predicts NRL intervention at Wests Tigers after more boardroom upheaval
Dan Walsh, Adrian Proszenko
Dec 2, 2025
Deposed Wests Tigers chairman Barry O’Farrell has described the sacking of himself and three fellow directors by the club’s majority owners as a “brain fart” and predicted the NRL may step in to prevent further upheaval at the joint venture.
The Holman Barnes Group, Wests Tigers’ 90 per cent shareholder, confirmed on Monday that a removal notice had been issued to the club’s four independent directors: O’Farrell, Annabelle Williams, Charlie Viola and Michelle McDowell.
HBG chief executive Daniel Paton said the club owners had been left out of the loop on commercial announcements – including the colour scheme of the Tigers’ home jersey next season, which was deemed to be too orange – less than a year after the board’s restructuring as part of an independent review.
The immediate future of Tigers CEO Shane Richardson, who has been closely allied to O’Farrell, has also come into question, with former chairman Lee Hagipantelis predicting he won’t survive into the next NRL season.
Following a statement by the four deposed directors, former NSW premier O’Farrell told ABC Sydney Mornings with Hamish McDonald that he was baffled by the Holman Barnes Group’s latest move, and forecast potential NRL intervention at the embattled club.
“For reasons I suspect relate to antics within the Holman Barnes Group and the desire for people to get to the top there, we’ve had yet another brain fart affecting the club,” O’Farrell said on Tuesday morning.
“A year ago, they replaced their chair (Julia Romero) after the best returns Holman Barnes had ever received. And here we are a year later, they’re replacing the board of West Tigers at a time when, on all the indices for the first time in many years, we’ve done well.
“We’ve achieved our first profit, I think, in more than a decade. And at that moment, the owners, as they’re able to, have decided to take this action.”
O’Farrell, who first joined the Tigers as interim chairman in December 2023, foreshadowed the NRL stepping in to sort out the club’s governance issues. The game’s governing body made governance restructuring, including the appointment of independent directors and key performance targets, a condition of loan commitments to the Tigers in 2013.
“If it continues to go to hell in a hand basket, I have no doubt that the NRL will do what the NRL would always do, which is seek to protect the image of rugby league,” O’Farrell said.
Meanwhile, Richardson’s role at the club is the next key question, with O’Farrell’s predecessor Hagipantelis predicting he won’t survive into next season.
Richardson is one of the most experienced administrators in the game, but could become collateral damage in the latest power play at the Tigers.
Richardson hasn’t yet commented publicly on the situation, but former Tigers chair Hagipantelis predicts he could soon be the next to go.
Asked if he felt Richardson wouldn’t be in his position for the start of next season, Hagipantelis told SEN radio: “I agree … Richardson had, not an unfettered discretion, but a very wide discretion reporting to Barry, as opposed to all the board for a lot of the decision-making that had to be made in relation to the running of an NRL club.
“That level of delegated authority, it’s very hard to bring back, to restrain or to constrain. There will be some issues of concern there, and Richardson will have to think as to whether he can operate now as to how he did previously with the new board.”
It has been speculated that Richardson had negotiated clauses in his contract that would result in a payout if there were changes at board level.
“I think that would be very much likely,” Hagipantelis said. “I’ve heard those suggestions as well, that the contract was created in such a fashion where his position was solidified in writing and with delegated authority also.
“And that if there was a change, then it could actually prompt termination on grounds favourable to him.”
Wests Tigers have been plagued by dysfunction at the boardroom level since the merger between Balmain and Wests in 1999. Hagipantelis claims some HGB powerbrokers want Balmain to be removed from the joint-venture.
“One thousand per cent,” Hagipantelis said. “It was admitted to me by a fellow who is now a director of the Wests Magpies that the ultimate aim is to return the Magpies to the NRL.
“There were some quiet discussions not too long ago about extracting Balmain from the Wests Tigers and returning them to the State Cup.”
Dan Walsh, Adrian Proszenko
Dec 2, 2025
Deposed Wests Tigers chairman Barry O’Farrell has described the sacking of himself and three fellow directors by the club’s majority owners as a “brain fart” and predicted the NRL may step in to prevent further upheaval at the joint venture.
The Holman Barnes Group, Wests Tigers’ 90 per cent shareholder, confirmed on Monday that a removal notice had been issued to the club’s four independent directors: O’Farrell, Annabelle Williams, Charlie Viola and Michelle McDowell.
HBG chief executive Daniel Paton said the club owners had been left out of the loop on commercial announcements – including the colour scheme of the Tigers’ home jersey next season, which was deemed to be too orange – less than a year after the board’s restructuring as part of an independent review.
The immediate future of Tigers CEO Shane Richardson, who has been closely allied to O’Farrell, has also come into question, with former chairman Lee Hagipantelis predicting he won’t survive into the next NRL season.
Following a statement by the four deposed directors, former NSW premier O’Farrell told ABC Sydney Mornings with Hamish McDonald that he was baffled by the Holman Barnes Group’s latest move, and forecast potential NRL intervention at the embattled club.
“For reasons I suspect relate to antics within the Holman Barnes Group and the desire for people to get to the top there, we’ve had yet another brain fart affecting the club,” O’Farrell said on Tuesday morning.
“A year ago, they replaced their chair (Julia Romero) after the best returns Holman Barnes had ever received. And here we are a year later, they’re replacing the board of West Tigers at a time when, on all the indices for the first time in many years, we’ve done well.
“We’ve achieved our first profit, I think, in more than a decade. And at that moment, the owners, as they’re able to, have decided to take this action.”
O’Farrell, who first joined the Tigers as interim chairman in December 2023, foreshadowed the NRL stepping in to sort out the club’s governance issues. The game’s governing body made governance restructuring, including the appointment of independent directors and key performance targets, a condition of loan commitments to the Tigers in 2013.
“If it continues to go to hell in a hand basket, I have no doubt that the NRL will do what the NRL would always do, which is seek to protect the image of rugby league,” O’Farrell said.
Meanwhile, Richardson’s role at the club is the next key question, with O’Farrell’s predecessor Hagipantelis predicting he won’t survive into next season.
Richardson is one of the most experienced administrators in the game, but could become collateral damage in the latest power play at the Tigers.
Richardson hasn’t yet commented publicly on the situation, but former Tigers chair Hagipantelis predicts he could soon be the next to go.
Asked if he felt Richardson wouldn’t be in his position for the start of next season, Hagipantelis told SEN radio: “I agree … Richardson had, not an unfettered discretion, but a very wide discretion reporting to Barry, as opposed to all the board for a lot of the decision-making that had to be made in relation to the running of an NRL club.
“That level of delegated authority, it’s very hard to bring back, to restrain or to constrain. There will be some issues of concern there, and Richardson will have to think as to whether he can operate now as to how he did previously with the new board.”
It has been speculated that Richardson had negotiated clauses in his contract that would result in a payout if there were changes at board level.
“I think that would be very much likely,” Hagipantelis said. “I’ve heard those suggestions as well, that the contract was created in such a fashion where his position was solidified in writing and with delegated authority also.
“And that if there was a change, then it could actually prompt termination on grounds favourable to him.”
Wests Tigers have been plagued by dysfunction at the boardroom level since the merger between Balmain and Wests in 1999. Hagipantelis claims some HGB powerbrokers want Balmain to be removed from the joint-venture.
“One thousand per cent,” Hagipantelis said. “It was admitted to me by a fellow who is now a director of the Wests Magpies that the ultimate aim is to return the Magpies to the NRL.
“There were some quiet discussions not too long ago about extracting Balmain from the Wests Tigers and returning them to the State Cup.”
NRL intervention is frankly the best thing. I don’t care if Campbelltown, HBG, Balmain have a presence but none of them should be in control.
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