Surely this and the increase in closing off state borders means that its impractical (if not ridiculous) to continue to try and run the season now.
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there is a report that the Central Queensland solution is about to be enacted.
ARLC is right now doing a phone hook up with every club + Nine, Fox Sports about moving the comp to the “fly in / fly out” facility in Central Queensland to keep the comp alive from one location. Radio will have to take the feed from TV (not an issue other then interviews but I guess there will be some type of back end agreements).
I suspect that NSW and Victoria will not wait for Scotty from Marketing to shut down all non-essential travel between states/territories and will do that as early as Tuesday morning, Queensland will follow (so will ACT as it has to being inside NSW).
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Looks like ARLC will have an announcement at around 6:30pm tonight about a possible relocation to central QLD.
Fuck me, just shut it down - it was stupid that they continued (regardless of what advice they got from the Government). Not only is this tone-deaf (like a lot of the players) - its not helpful.
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Not disagreeing with you but the central qld thing could work.
Of course the bigger issue is keeping the players and staff and officials all on the same page and not wanting to do “bad” things while they are away from their family / regular homes …
They will need a heap of booze and access to fibre internet to ensure access to certain websites to keep them sane.
NRL Big Brother 2020 …
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Time for the Government to step in - go to Queensland and there goes any possibility (which should already be next to nil anyway) of government assistance in the future
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This really sounds crazy. But, if they are going to consider this, the first thing that needs to be done is for every player and member of the support teams to be tested. It’s possible that there is someone who is asymptomatic who will spread the virus to multiple players and derail the idea.
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and the ARLC would simply sue the hell out of he government as they would bear all the liability by not acting earlier.
Look I am not disagreeing I want them to shut down also but if there is a chance to continue in a isolated spot like central qld and provided every angled is viewed and cleared then there should be no issue with doing it.
of course its up to the players, shame they dont’t have a stronger union to protect them … I guess it would not matter as Scotty hates unions.
Media has been told get ready to relocated to central qld for the next potentially 3 to 6 months.
While not confirmed the clubs all agree the comp but continue, it was put to the players and the vote was passed as yes (don’t know the split), looks like they are moving to the central qld facility provided everyone checks out as 100%.
That is roughly 700 people that are gonna be relocated living in close quarters.
Just some further info, if the ARLC can continue until after April 1 2020 then it would trigger the next quarterly payment from News Corp, Telstra and Nine + NZ Media and international rights holders.
that is basically 10 days from today, that would give them a buffer of a round $18 million which can be used for emergency payments to clubs to pay players, after that the ARLC would have to dip into its cash reserves which are (net) $132 million AUD.
From there I would think the NRL could potentially suspend the comp until June and and still have enough times to play into early November
But of course that is the optimistic side of things,
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Peter V’Landys is thinking the NRL and NSW horse racing will continue. They shouldn’t, I think, and he should be bluntly told they can’t continue.
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if lets say Victorian Govt via regulation enact a freeze on all venues within its boards being used then the Storm would have to be compensated as it’snot there fault they are being locked out, the Storm do have a further option and that is to relocated to lets say Albury to continue playing like NZ Warriors have, as boarder towns are not being shut down from inter-state travel (as some people live and work on the other sides of the boarder) that is one way around that issue.
Again I am not advocating this just stating it that it’s an option open to them.
The same would apply to the Raiders ad they could play in Queenbeyan NSW (right next door to Canberra last suburb), the Gold Coast Chargers could use the former Seaguls (remember the Giants) home region of Tweed Heads, but the Broncos and Cowboys is much harder to work out, Broncos could use Tweed Heads option but Cowboys would have to relocated to Brisbane and operate out of Tweed Heads also.
Again just throwing options out there.
The best option would be to relocate to central QLD or the worst case scenario is to play next week which gets them the next quarterly media money and then suspend to and of May for a june restart.
Again optimistic.
Just listen to those plans fly over the NRL game … travel still in full force.
6.30pm has come and gone and there is no announcement. If there is one, I think it will be released at the conclusion of Titans v Eels match tonight.
He is stupendously tone-deaf
No, the best option is to pause the season - playing another game in order to get another payment is simply dumb.
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Some people are still not listening to what the governments are saying. And it is plain that the NRL has done nothing to ensure people could not congregate behind the fences. A Facebook post directed at NSW Health:
V’Landys is a moron
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Much to the delight of Nine…
Is V’Landys that ignorant about people and players’ health? What about the fact that NRL has teams across three states, NZ and a territory (four of which are practically going into lockdown)? Selfish human.
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…and New Zealand! Canberra too.
If the AFL is being suspended, then the NRL should be too.
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Given that he’s the type of guy who cares more about his business ventures (Opera House advertising where he jumped on the bandwagon with Alan Jones and tormented Louise Herron) than public interests or integrity, I’m not exactly surprised but I’m still disappointed.
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V’landys is a total fuckhead who’s willing to overlook ANYTHING to make a buck.
His wilful ignorance of the disgraceful under-the-radar horse slaughter as head of Racing NSW said it all.
Disgusting. Fuck him.
This Gilligan’s Island plan of his to relocate everything to Central Queensland absolutely smacks of desperation, and once thousands start to die in hospitals the NRL holding games will be like holding a concert on the evening after 9/11.
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