The attitude of Gallop is typical. Â If a stakeholder in the game comes up with another option it is simply dismissed out of hand. Â
They only take direction from a small group of people who ostensibly run the game. Â If you are not in that group forget any ideas being looked at. Â And when we see the quality (or lack thereof) of the decision-making by the management team it leaves we, the fans, very discontented as we are left out in the cold.
We have certain people running things and the stakeholder with the least voice is the fan who pays their money each week or buys their membership or pays their TV subscription and is expected simply to put up and shut up.
I think this is why this game is going to continually do it tough and will eventually be overtaken by Aussie Rules or have to amalgamate with rugby union just to survive. Â It is a great product but poorly managed and it's management is resistant to change unless they thought of it.
Gallop reminds me of the chairman of the board stuck in the 1990's and sees the shareholders (fans) of the company as nothing but a nuisance to be spoken to once a year at the AGM but otherwise to stay away from the running of the company. Â As this is a job to be done by the managers, those select few who in their minds alone know what they are doing. Â (I sometines think they don't by the way.)
Well, HIH, Enron, Anset, Onetel and many other companies have gone by the by as they did the wrong thing and in particular failed to listen and include their stakeholders and shareholders. Â I just hope the NRL doesn't follow this path into oblivion.
If the NRL wants some tips, here are a few ideas that might work.
1 Â Abolish the salary cap and replace that with a points system that would be monitored by the NRL. Â Ian Schubert would simply change roles from auditor to evaluator.
2 Â Change the top eight similar to the AFL giving teams 1 through 4 a second chance.
3 Â Police all rules correctly and properly without referees coaching players on the field.
4 Â Get rid of the hidden agenda and let teams play on a level playing field.
I have other ideas and would be willing to discuss them. Â However, I doubt that I will receive any request to submit them to the league. Â Which in fact just highlights my earlier point so I, like many fans, will simply put up and shut up.
