**ARLC announces 12 clubs relocating to Queensland due to COVID spike**
Dan WalshSun 11 Jul 2021, 07:13 PM
Twelve NRL clubs will relocate to south-east Queensland for a month to keep the 2021 competition alive.
After an exhaustive day of meetings in response to the surging COVID-19 outbreak in greater Sydney, club CEOs were informed on Sunday night that the majority of clubs would need to shift to the Sunshine State, starting from Wednesday.
Wednesday's Ampol State of Origin series finale had already been moved on Saturday night from Newcastle to the Gold Coast to ensure fans could attend the match.
All NSW and ACT based teams will move to south-east Queensland for one month to minimise risk of the Telstra Premiership being impacted by the growing COVID-19 outbreak in Sydney.
They will relocate to dedicated hubs by Wednesday and play home matches out of Suncorp Stadium, Cbus Super Stadium or Sunshine Coast Stadium.
All Queensland-based clubs, along with the Melbourne Storm will continue to be based and play home games out of their current home cities.
The NRL is finalising arrangements with the Queensland Government to ensure every club has access to appropriate facilities at each hub.
Clubs will be flown on charter flights to Queensland and comply with Apollo Protocols and public health requirements to ensure no risk to the Queensland Community. Every club will be permitted a maximum of 41 players and staff while in Queensland.
Several clubs had already prepared players and staff to be ready for such a move, earlier on Sunday.
Canberra and Newcastle will join the nine Sydney sides and Central Coast-based Warriors in relocating.
A revised schedule with the location of games for the next 4 Rounds will be released in the coming days.
Clubs will relocate and players will remain under the same COVID-19 restrictions that limit movements to training, games and essential shopping for at least 14 days.
Family members are set to be allowed to join them as part of a staged relocation process, though they too will have to undergo two weeks of quarantine as well.
The mass relocation comes after NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian's forecast that she "will be shocked" if Sydney records less than 100 active COVID-19 cases on Monday.
A third week of Greater Sydney's lockdown started on Sunday with news of 77 locally acquired cases.
Pre-season training for each of the six NRLW teams in the expanded competition had also been due to start on Monday, but Project Apollo has now pushed that date back a week with contingencies for the competition to be worked out this week.
Breaches of the NRL's strict level-four Apollo protocols by Dragons players and Queensland star Jai Arrow in the past week have put the NRL's travel exemptions at risk, with 12 St George Illawarra players still yet to return to training ahead of Friday's clash with Manly.
NRL CEO Andrew Abdo said on The Sunday Footy Show those breaches had threatened the game's travel exemptions, and in turn its short-term future, as negotiations continue regarding sworn statements from Dragons players that would ensure no one other than players were at Paul Vaughan's party last weekend.
NRL.com understands 10 of the 12 players involved in the breach have signed the statements as of early Sunday afternoon, with Abdo "fairly confident we'll get a resolution of that in the next 24 hours".
Greater Sydney's worsening COVID-19 situation has also made the Warriors' long-awaited return to Auckland's Mt Smart Stadium – scheduled for August 15 in round 22 – unlikely given the travel exemptions required, though Abdo said the late of that fixture would be decided in conjunction with the club.
Friday night's Rabbitohs v Cowboys game was relocated from Stadium Australia to Newcastle due to the Greater Sydney lockdown
Why are they not using Townsville stadium? Surely it would make sense to have 3-5 teams + the cowboys up there
Good question. I thought it would be the first place they went to.
