Peter V’landys has declared Andrew Abdo will be the NRL’s greatest ever CEO, insistent he can now take a back seat as ARL Commission chairman with a full-time boss in place. The leading contender and interim chief since Todd Greenberg walked in April, Abdo will take charge of the game’s next chapter out of Covid-19.
“We didn’t need to look far. Andrew will probably be the best CEO the NRL will ever have,” V’landys said. “He’s had the longest job interview ever. Andrew has led the ship through this emergency, he’s been calm and his work ethic has been extraordinary.
“He’s been thrown in the deep end and was either going to sink or drown. He’s swum the English Channel 50 times and done it in one breath.”
The South African-born accountant first arrived in Australia to work with Deloitte in 2012, before becoming an NRL and Manly fan. He joined the NRL in 2013 in the commercial department, before acting as a key advisor to former CEO Dave Smith and later landing the chief commercial role.
More recently he became V’landys’ right-hand man, travelling with him to the USA for high-powered talks with Lachlan Murdoch and global streaming companies. And after being the most vocal and influential sporting administrator in Australia for the past six months, V’landys now said it was time for Abdo to step up.
“I said when I took on the role as chairman I wouldn’t be at the forefront. The CEO would be at the forefront,” V’landys said. “I would only come out in emergencies or when someone needed to take some bullets. Now Andrew has been appointed I think he’s got to take the stage and lead the game forward.”
Significant challenges await. While Abdo labelled V’landys’ expectations as “daunting”, so too are the changes that must happen at the NRL. The league want to slash around $50m a year from their budget, and this week cut chief operating officer Nick Weeks and head of corporate affairs Liz Deegan.
A salary cap must be set for next season as well as roster numbers, with a 5% cut and two players dropping out of the top squad expected. The football department cap will also likely drop from $6m to $5m next year, before the game then looks to grow again.
“The most imminent stage is stability,” Abdo said. “We need to remove costs and secure revenues and reset the culture inside our game. More trust, transparency and action. Then we need to renovate. It allows us to think about doing things differently. And then we need to think about growth.”
And it all must be done while trying to keep the support of the club and commission, somewhere each of Abdo’s predecessors have fallen. “It’s difficult, sport is a complex industry. But we bring people together. Everyone has strong views and everyone believes in their outlook on any matter.
“The way you build trust is to communicate regularly, be open and transparent and to follow through on actions. We need to be honest, accountable for the timelines the commission set and we need to follow through and front up.”
