WIN owner Bruce Gordon buys 50 per cent stake in St George Illawarra Dragons

The Steelers, who joined the then NSWRL in 1982 and merged with the Dragons at the end of the Super League war, will also have no equity in St George Illawarra – Gordon holding 50 per cent and the Kogarah-based Dragons retaining 50 per cent – but Illawarra will have representation on the board.

The Balmain Tigers, a 1908 foundation club, will nominally exist in Wests Tigers, and their parlous financial state means they are unlikely to raise the $2.7 million to acquire a 25 per cent share of the club and board representation but will be given 5 years to do so.

The official announcement of the restructures, supervised by the NRL's Tony Crawford, will coincide with repayment of debt to the NRL, with Gordon paying between $6 million and $7 million and Wests Ashfield, the Magpies' successful licensed club, paying $2.7 million, which is half the outstanding money owed headquarters. 

Wests Ashfield will have control of the board, constitution and all documents, and a veto over any new owner of the remaining quarter of the club.

Private equity of 25 per cent would relieve Wests Ashfield of some responsibility of covering future cost overruns.

 Ashfield has also ruled out any possibility of moving to 100 per cent equity, because it would mean rebranding the club as the Wests Magpies and moving to Campbelltown.

Not only would this mean vacating a huge wedge of inner Sydney to the Bulldogs and Eels, it would also disenfranchise a new generation of rugby league fans who have grown up knowing the club only as Wests Tigers.

The Dragons are entitled to boast they have been the only enduring successful joint venture of the three formed at the end of the costly and brutal Super League war when the number of clubs was to be cut initially from 20 to 14.

Unlike the shotgun marriages of Wests Tigers and the short-lived Northern Eagles combination of traditional enemies Norths and Manly, the union of St George and the Steelers was a wedding where each partner had what the other wanted.

St George had history, while Illawarra had geography.

The usually successful Dragons were backed by its Kogarah-based licensed club but surrounded by an increasingly ageing, non-traditional rugby league demographic, while the Steelers had a rich nursery of talent but little money and tradition.

 The not-negotiables in the original wedding vows of St George Illawarra  – colours (red and white), emblem (Dragons) and location (St George and Wollongong) – will remain. Future decisions on where games are played – Wollongong, Kogarah, Allianz or ANZ stadiums – will be made by the new board.

The Magpies will control where future Wests Tigers games are played but the disappointing crowd at Leichhardt on Sunday, admittedly against Melbourne who drew few supporters, indicate a westward move to Homebush and eventually Campbelltown.       

The NRL has set a time frame on the ownership structures of its four debtor clubs – Dragons, Wests Tigers, Knights and Titans – and has dictated all four will be treated the same regarding money owed.

While the Dragons are expected to be the first of the officially-announced new ownership structures, the lawyers working on the Wests Tigers reorganisation will complete details by the end of April.

Wests, the competition's paupers from the late 1970s when Ashfield's annual grant was only $50,000, have been effectively reborn from the late 1950s when it was known as the "millionaire club".

The Dragons, who are now the NRL's only perfect match of private equity and community ownership, can boast they have always looked ahead to the next twist of economic history.

While Souths refused to merge and were banished by the NRL, the Dragons embraced the Steelers and the NRL's $10 million merger dowry and have now followed the Rabbitohs in seeking a rich suitor of similar megabucks to James Packer and Russell Crowe, Souths' new owners.

Gordon's WIN Corporation is one of the most successful media corporations in Australia and the sport of rugby league, once shunned by the top end of town, can now claim some wealthy investors.

It can be argued the Steelers have retreated to their original position as a St George nursery, but the Wollongong club has contributed little finance to the costly operation of an NRL club. However, they will have savvy representation on the new board, and the Steelers administer the highly successful local Illawarra Coal League.

Wests Ashfield subsidises six junior clubs in the traditional Balmain district.

smh.com.au