Andrew Abdo discusses the NRL's COVID plans and movements

Brendan Bradford

Andrew Abdo discusses the NRL's COVID plans and movements image

A decision on the future of the 2021 NRL season will be made on Sunday night, with NRL CEO Andrew Abdo hinting at the strong possibility of relocation of Sydney teams. 

Sydney's COVID outbreak is seemingly deteriorating by the day, with 77 cases announced on Sunday. 

New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian said she expects over 100 cases to be recorded on Monday as lockdowns look set to continue. 

On Saturday night, the NRL moved Origin 3 from Newcastle to the Gold Coast highlighting government concerns about Sydney's COVID-19 outbreak spreading to regional New South Wales.

On Sunday morning, Abdo discussed the game's plans if the situation doesn't improve.

"It's not good news in New South Wales, and we've been preparing for different scenarios, and one of them is relocation," Abdo said on The Footy Show on Channel 9.

"We have nine Sydney-based teams, and it's very much on the cards that we may have to - for a short period of time - relocate them to somewhere where there's a much lower risk of infection."

Abdo said decisions over how many clubs will need to be relocated, to where and for how long, will be made over the next 24 hours. 

"It's realtime. We have been working on it for a number of weeks in terms of preparation, not it becomes the practical elements of that," he said.

"We've been working on it around the clock over the last few days.

"We'll have a discussion with our board this evening and then we'll start communicating plans through the different stakeholders."

With games being played behind closed doors, Abdo said there will be added financial support for NRL clubs. 

"The commission was strong on this last year, and we are going to support our clubs," he said. 

"We're going to stick together and make sure we are financially supporting them through this. 

"There is a significant amount of cost we're incurring at the moment. There's the cost of relocation and then there's the opportunity cost of not being able to get the commercial revenues from games. 

"The good news is we've been super-disciplined, we've removed cost and we've been fighting for every dollar to replenish our bank account as much as we can. 

"We'll be ready for this contingency." 

 

 

 

Brendan Bradford