Excerpts from The Sunday Telegraph interview
(The appointment of Anthony De Ceglie) came about when (Peter) V’landys and De Ceglie were both at the Sydney wedding of talent agency boss and mutual friend George Moskos.
“We were talking about the Bears,” De Ceglie said. “And I said to PVL, ‘you need someone in the job who knows Perth’.
“Nothing works in Perth unless you know the city.
“As we were talking, I told him I might be interested in being part of it. So he told me to go and see Andrew Abdo if I was serious, which I did. It all came from there.
“I fell in love with rugby league when I was deputy editor of The Daily Telegraph.
“When you’re an editor in chief or news director you become very good at having knowledge about a lot of things, rather than being an expert in any one specific thing.
“I can’t wait to become a rugby league expert.”
He has plans outside of more traditional sports media practices to win fans over from AFL.
“I actually think the Perth Bears could become the most innovative and most media-savvy sporting club in Australia, doing it from the ground up with an open-door policy to have access to the coaches and the players for the fans and the media like they do in major sports overseas,” De Ceglie said.
“I’m also thinking about a documentary. Could we become Australia’s version of Wrexham? I think it’s a no-brainer for us with the comeback of North Sydney and Perth.”