BY JOHN DAVIDSON
Phil Gould believes the NRL taking over Super League would be vital in the growth and successful expansion of rugby league across the globe.
Speaking in depth on the Six Tackles with Gus podcast, the former NRL and NSW coach, and current Canterbury Bulldogs boss, commented on reports that the NRL is interested in getting involved with rugby league in the UK.
Gould feels that the NRL being in charge of the game in Britain would be positive and help make the sport stronger globally, and stressed the importance of international rugby league.
“The NRL should be the EPL [English Premier League], if you like, of world rugby league,” the Channel 9 pundit said.
“The comment from the ARLC Commission was that’s not really our charter, it’s to run a competition in Australia. Well, you need to change your charter because it’s not going to happen worldwide unless the NRL does it. And to their credit I think they’ve really tried to go down that line.
“The future of the UK Super League is important to Australia is because we need international competition. We need Great Britain and England to be strong.
“The future of broadcast rights and the value of the UK Super League would rely heavily on a successful London franchise, and it [London] never really is… It would be a rebuild of the UK Super League. I’m not big on the administration [the RFL] or the management or how things work over there.
“What our game needs, on the whole, on a global scale, is a rolling eight-year calendar of international and domestic events. And it needs one body governing for all that and controlling all of that.
“We need to govern our investment in the Pacific Islands. We need to govern our investment in the Pacific and in New Zealand, whether we end up with a new franchise across there, two NRL teams over there.
“It needs a rolling eight-year representative calendar, domestic calendar here in Australia, and then what do we do we with the domestic competition here [the NRL]… What’s the potential for our game?
“And I honestly believe that the future of our game, the growth of our game, needs to come on the international scale. I think domestically we’re probably as saturated as we can possibly get.
“I don’t think we can get any more support for our game domestically than we currently have. I think it’s important that we do succeed and get a franchise in Perth, for sure. And I’m hoping that’s resurrected.
“What our game looks like in 30 or 40 years relies on the decisions we make now and not wasting the opportunities we’ve got. We’ve made giant strides in the last decade, in the last 15 years, around the Pacific islands and international football.
“Covid got in the way of that a little bit, and it was an extra expense for the game. When Tonga beat Australia in 2019 it was such a monumental thing but we never got to celebrate it because Covid hit and everything shut down.
“The focus for the growth of our game, and the value of our game, and the growth of the broadcast potential in our game comes in the international field. In 30, 40 years down the track what does our game look like? Where is it played? Who is it played by?
“Mens and womens game, in what countries is it played? I can see games being played in Pacific Island nations. I can see it having more of an international flavour to it… I’m hugely excited about the Kangaroo tour at the end of this year.
“International competition is so important. We need England to tour Australia, we need three-match Test series’ against New Zealand…. They need to start planning now and how our game is going to sell itself to broadcasters and who it’s going to sell itself to and what is the future of broadcasting?
“What is the future of media rights? How does the game maximise its revenue and where is it going to be played? I think there’s great opportunity.
“I think we’re on the doorstep of greatness if we’re proactive and aggressive in how we expand our sport. It all comes with investment in development. It all comes with investment in developing countries and I think the great advance in our game will come from the international stage, not the domestic stage.
“You’ve got to keep moving forward, you’ve got to be proactive in the development and the expansion of the game.
“I think our greatest asset over some of our sporting rivals and sporting codes that we have in Australia is the fact we can have an international game, we do have an international flavour to it. The AFL don’t have that…we can create a really special code of football that expands across the world eventually.
“The international game is so important. We should be setting aside an international window every year.”
