Gal's plea to NRL over Super League buy

Yeah, I, I've heard about this and the NRL are looking at buying this. But my, my question first of all is why like are they, is it a business decision? Are they looking at being a business? When you think about the UK, you're dealing against the world game. You, you're pitying against soccer, the world game in the north of England. I think a lot, a few of them clubs are privately owned. Are they going to want to sell to the NRL? And I think the best players from the UK sort of make their way to Australia anyway. I, I, I think we should be shoring up our, our own shores here, putting some money back in the grass roots footy. I know we had two years of COVID. Let me tell you this year, I know for a fact Junior League this year in my area anyway, I've played about four or five games. The the grounds are terrible. The washouts, you know, put, put, put some money back in the grassroots footy, build some grounds that have drainage so kids can play week in week out. Put some money back in the country rugby league. Like where, how? Where's country rugby league at the moment? How's that going for more reports? Not going too well. I'll be putting money back in the country rugby league. We've seen so many good players come from the country. Let's give some money back to them. And what about clubs that develop talent? There's there's clubs that develop player talent. We shouldn't be giving money to them. They're they're the ones putting the, you know, their bums on seats because the players are out there playing for for the for the clubs. I think that we should be rewarding them, rewarding, rewarding the clubs that develop the players. Is there room to invest in both from the league's perspective? Gas Yeah, I I think absolutely. Paul makes all good points about the domestic scene here. And there's a lot of work that still needs to be done domestically and the game needs to grow. I said at the start of the season someone said to me what's the state of the game at the moment? I said we are on the doorstep of greatness. I think more than ever in our history, rugby league has a real chance to go to another level and that's with Pacific Islands investment in New Zealand, a challenging rugby in those in those strongholds. And I honestly believe that the NRL should buy the English Super League. I think that the NRL needs to be the EPL of World Rugby League AS the APL is of soccer over there in, in, in that part of the world. I think that we could really build a European game. I think we could build the English Super League game. I was contacted after those comments by several owners of the top owners in in in the UK saying that, you know, I think the NRL would be pushing against an open door if they wanted to talk about that. Not so much the administration there, but certainly the clubs themselves would love as much support as possible. The UK Super League is not doing as well financially as it possibly could and I think the game as a whole we have, we have an international board but it's rather a toothless Tiger and it just sort of fills in with international football when it can. And our calendar is getting so congested at the back end of the season. We're playing too many months of the year. We need a rolling five year calendar for domestic rugby league, international rugby league and other forms of representative football right across the board and it can only be done if you've got one governing body for the lot. That's why we wanted the Commission here in Australia. We wanted one governing body in Australia. We didn't exactly get that because the QRL in NSW rugby league still exists. But I think from a world perspective, if the NRL wanted to take and it's not part of the NRL Charter, I remember when I spoke to the NRL Commission about this, they said well international football's not our charter. I said change the charter because unless you do it, international rugby league will never what's realise its full potential. What, what does the NRL get out of doing that that role, growing the game internationally, growing the game world, What's the point? Just purely growing the game? Well, we, we, we can just got to help the NRL. Like logistically it's a nightmare. The, the, the time difference, the difference between our game and a lot of others is international competition. AFL don't have international competition. We can build it and it certainly can be another source of player talent. If we wanna go to 20 teams here, it's certainly another part part of development. We can help the UK with the development of youngsters over there. They don't really have, you know, some of the richer clubs do but not all right through England is that, you know, the football, soccer is the pathways across in those areas. So I think we need to help them. And I think from an international standpoint, if the NRL was running World Rugby League, we could go to a 5 and 10 year calendar and organise our our domestic competition, which is going to be a 20 team comp in the next 8 or 10 years. And international as well. It's a big job. I mean, someone's actually gotta sit down and run that for a long period of time. But I think rugby league can go to another level rather than just ad hoc doing what we're doing. But when I first heard about, I thought was a good idea. I've been brand thinking all day, how can it work? How can it work? And I, I just, I just can't see the logistical nightmare how how it can work what an international calendar. No, no, no, no. I are the Super League being beneficial to the NRL. It's different when you call, when you when you say what you're saying, when you say what you're saying and develop the international game. I I can see merit in that, but developing the Super League to bring players over to play in the NRL, like then you got not necessary to bring over to play in the NRL to make the Super League strong. That's what I'm saying that that's what you understand what you're saying there. You're saying to make the international game better. But as far as bringing players over to play in the NRL during the season, I I think that's too hard. You gotta worry about we need Great Britain to be strong. There's still an opportunity in Europe and France to resurrect the game and get it back to, you know, a a very stronghold there. We need Pacific Islands developed and we need New Zealand particularly. There is a real opportunity in in for rugby league in New Zealand at the moment more than ever before, more than ever before. And we grow the game here in Australia. We'll end up, you know, with a team in Perth, we'll end up in more of a national sport here. I'm just, I'm talking about ten, 20-30 years down the track what the game's going to look like. If we're still bumbling around doing what we're doing now, then we haven't used the money wise, then we haven't advanced it, you know, but that's going to take dedicated people over a long period of time and people that that, you know, look after the game beyond their own contract and beyond their own lifetime expansions coming.