By MICHAEL BYRNES
WESTS Tigers Chair Marina Go played the gender card on this site just a few days ago, in response to a question about why she has a comparatively high public profile among NRL club chairpersons.
When asked why she receives more media attention than her counterparts at other clubs, what Marina Go actually said was:
Because I am a woman. Let’s call it for what it is. Most of the commentary is plain ignorance. Some rugby league journalists don’t fully understand the role of a board chair […]
Trust me when I say that nothing that follows in Go’s answer explains why she believes her high profile is due to her gender. I’m not dismissing her assertion out of hand but if you’re going to make that claim, you can reasonably be expected to substantiate it. Marina Go made no attempt to provide such a justification.
In the absence of any evidence in support of Go’s claim, there is one question that remains — is there any evidence against it? Let’s have a quick look…
Firstly, as others have pointed out, the Tigers have been a complete basket case for numerous seasons. This might have contributed to the level of scrutiny the club and its chairperson have been exposed to in recent times. The debacle of allowing a coach whose job was hanging by a thread to force one of the club’s legends out the front door, then agreeing to pay that player’s salary the following season at a rival club, and then knifing the coach three games later, to be perfectly honest, is genuine cause for scrutiny at all levels of the Tigers organisation. Any contrary view could only be described as utter nonsense.
Secondly, the three crisis clubs in recent NRL history have undoubtedly been the Gold Coast, Wests Tigers and Parramatta. The boards of two of those clubs, the Titans and Tigers, are chaired by women — Rebecca Frizelle (Titans) and Marina Go (Tigers). The fact that Frizelle has a virtually non-existent media profile, despite being chair of one of the clubs in crisis, further undermines Go’s argument that her profile is due to gender alone.
In an era where the gender card is increasingly being used as a political weapon, it would be prudent to ensure that all appeals to gender bias are supported by the weight of evidence.
