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.
ARLC chairman Peter V’landys has heeded calls for the NRL to intervene following the latest dramas at the embattled joint-venture outfit.
www.smh.com.au
