A "bitter dispute" between the New South Wales Rugby League and New South Wales Leagues Club is "about to reach boiling point" over millions of dollars considered "the game's inheritance," according to Andrew Webster of the SYDNEY MORNING HERALD. The NSWRL is "furious that an agreement between the two bodies" has not been honored since the "sale of the NSW Leagues Club's Phillip Street premises last year" for A$15.5M. Not only is the NSWRL "still angry about the premises being sold without its knowledge, and grossly undervalued," but it has now demanded A$9M ($8.3M) from the sale to "pump into grassroots football." The NSWRL wants to see the money "before the profits from the sale of the premises are frittered away in trading losses." In the past four years the Leagues Club "hemorrhaged significantly," losing as much as A$800,000 a year for the past two years. NSWRL CEO Dave Trodden said, "There are two stark alternatives: the club continues to incur losses and the money is wasted. The other alternative is that the money is put to the use of the people who the club was originally designed to benefit -- rugby league players in NSW" (SMH, 4/24).
