Breaking news: HBG takeover

they’re old as shit. surely the dinosaurs have started dropping off.
Most of us dinosaurs on here fought for your freedom in WW1>>WW2>>Korea and>>Vietnam.
We survived 4 wars and got battle scars in each one.
We aint goin anywhere digger.
 
The NRL throw a lot of money at clubs it doesn't come without standards, and acting in self interest at the expense of the fans/ club would not be viewed positively - as was the case when Marina Go was chair.
Let's remember that none of these clowns have personal ownership of the club they represent, and are simply protected by an archaic system that prevents them be ousted - unless they turn on each other which seems to be a thing of late.
Surely there must be some sort of KPIs to keep your NRL license.
 
It would seem like something worth getting the owners to sign off on before proceeding.

Given the club’s historical sensitivities, it was pretty stupid for O’Farrell and co to rubber stamp this fashion faux pas.

I mean what did they think was going to happen 🤷‍♂️
Correct me if I'm wrong,is this the first orange Wests Tigers jersey in 25 years ?
What a load of bullsh.t this is ....25 years ago there was 2 clubs that had to merge to servive..25years ago.. !!! there's no Wests Magpies and no Balmain Tigers . anymore ..It's the Wests Tigers now . colours include Black, white and ORANGE. or
How about we change to the Balmain Magpies .🙄FFS ...All we want is a winning team wear brown the colour you get when you mix black orange and white ..😔
 
Can Richo decide he wants to leave but the board refuse to let him out of his contract? I suppose Richo could play the old mental health card.
Richo might actually go mental trying to work out where the HBG is coming from. From outside looking in they look to be trying to self sabotage the football club they own 90% of?
 
From my understanding of what Lee H said on sen, Richo has a clause in his contract to receive money and walk away if he's not happy with WTs board members independence- how lee would know, and what those clauses are ive no idea
 

‘We’re going to protect Wests Tigers fans’: NRL to launch probe into boardroom bloodbath​

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’landys said. “The people making these decisions must understand Wests Tigers fans are paramount - not politics.”
The views of O’Farrell were echoed on Tuesday morning by Gary Barnier, the co-author of a 2023 report on the Wests Tigers’ governance which led the Holman Barnes Group to recruit the four independent board members in January this year.

Barnier called on the game to put in place an administrator “to protect the NRL’s ambition to be a global game”.
 
they own the license and step in if you are bringing the game into disrepute. there is precedent too, i.e they helped newcastle and the eels when they had boardroom issues.
Thats not true - Newcastle were owned by Nathan Tinkler - when he went broke he relinquished the licence and the NRL managed it until a buyer could be found. The NRL didn't just move in and take back the licence. Parramattas board was sacked for inappropriate payments to players by the Liquor and Gaming Authority who placed an administrator in control until a new board was selected and proper governance was put in place. The only involvement the NRL had with Parramatta at that time was to fine them and deduct points for salary cap rorting. They did not do anything with their licence.
 
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“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.”

‘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.’

Barnier-Crawford report co-author Gary Barnier
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 have been plagued by dysfunction at the boardroom level since the merger between Balmain and Wests in 1999. Hagipantelis confirmed he had encountered a push for the Magpies to supersede the Tigers in 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.”

HBG chairman Dennis Burgess, one of the organisation’s representatives on the Wests Tigers board, did not return calls on Tuesday.

On Monday, 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 Richardson, who has been closely allied to O’Farrell, has also come into question, with 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 HBG’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.

“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 NRL 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.
nner West Council mayor Darcy Byrne, who was pivotal in securing state and federal funding for Leichhardt Oval upgrades, called for Liquor and Gaming NSW to “investigate and intervene” in the club’s administrative issues.

Pointing to the Independent Liquor and Gaming Authority’s previous investigation of disharmony and board directors being dismissed, Byrne said that “if this doesn’t demonstrate that there is a problem with governance in that organisation, then nothing will.”

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Three of the Wests Tigers four new independent board members: (from left), Barry O’Farrell, Charlie Viola and Michelle McDowell.

Analysis​

NRL 2025

Can boardroom changes put an end to the Wests Tigers’ endless soap opera?

Richardson’s role at the club is the next key question, with fears one of the most experienced administrators in the game could become collateral damage.

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.”
 
I’m sure Burgess & Epifania would’ve opposed that jersey.
Perhaps they lost the vote but won the war 🤷‍♂️
No mate, they did the equivalent of proudly demanding a pissing contest that us thousands of fans have witnessed! and ithas absolutely made it clear to us thousands of WESTS TIGERS fans that the HBG and the wig wearing fraud that leads it are adolescent imbeciles occupying a position they do not deserve making selfish infantile decisions to the detriment of the wests Tigers and all of their supporters. If the NRL are unable to extricate the club from that board then us supporters need to protest vocally until we are heard …loud and proud that we choose Richo and his vision and the HBG can go the way of the dinosaurs… we have had enough of their BS
 
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