Wagga Wagga Leagues Club
Encyclopedia
Rugby league
Rugby league football, usually called rugby league, is a full contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular grass field. One of the two codes of rugby football, it originated in England in 1895 by a split from Rugby Football Union over paying players...
Club in Wagga Wagga
Wagga Wagga, New South Wales
Wagga Wagga is a city in New South Wales, Australia. Straddling the Murrumbidgee River, and with an urban population of 46,735 people, Wagga Wagga is the state's largest inland city, as well as an important agricultural, military, and transport hub of Australia...
, New South Wales
New South Wales
New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...
, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
.
History
In 1955, Magpies Football Club purchased an 8.5 acres (3.4 ha) block in Gurwood Street from the Wagga Wagga War Services Home Commission, who constructed a temporary clubhouse. A new Rugby Leagues Club, Eric Weissel OvalEric Weissel Oval
Eric Weissel Oval was a multi-use stadium in Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, Australia. It was named after Eric Weissel and opened in 1959. It was used mostly for rugby league matches and had a capacity of 10,000 people, with a record crowd of 11,685 recorded on 20 July 1988 for the Australia vs...
and Tennis courts was constructed in 1959 with a second storey constructed on the club building in 1964.
Financial difficulty
2003 Wagga Wagga Leagues Club president, Brian Lawrence announced that the club was in $Australian dollar
The Australian dollar is the currency of the Commonwealth of Australia, including Christmas Island, Cocos Islands, and Norfolk Island, as well as the independent Pacific Island states of Kiribati, Nauru and Tuvalu...
4 million in debt. March 2003 Queensland Clubs Management and Melbourne Storm
Melbourne Storm
The Melbourne Storm are an Australian professional rugby league club based in the city of Melbourne. They are the first fully professional rugby league team based in the Australian rules football-dominated state of Victoria....
owner John Ribot
John Ribot
John Ribot is an Australian sports administrator and former rugby league footballer of the 1970s and 80s. Once a Queensland State of Origin and Australian international representative winger, Ribot was the 1980 NSWRFL season's top try-scorer...
offered a $4 million package to clear the clubs debts however the founding president of the Wagga Wagga Leagues club, Jack Murphy was concerned that the clubs debts was from poor management. 20 March 2003 disgruntled leagues club members requested an explanation from the leagues club's board of directors about the $4 million rescue package offered by John Ribot
John Ribot
John Ribot is an Australian sports administrator and former rugby league footballer of the 1970s and 80s. Once a Queensland State of Origin and Australian international representative winger, Ribot was the 1980 NSWRFL season's top try-scorer...
.
1 April 2003 extraordinary meeting by disgruntled members which was to call on the removal of four leagues directors was postponed after the Leagues Club signing the deal from John Ribot. New South Wales Gaming Minister Grant McBride was concerned about the rescue deal by Queensland Clubs Management who ordered a review of commercial arrangements of the deal. 1 August 2003, Leagues Club president dismissed the Prime News report that the club's board members voted for the club to be placed under voluntary administration and also denied that Queensland Clubs Management walked away from the deal, however the club was placed under an administrator (Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu
Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu
Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited , commonly referred to as Deloitte, is one of the Big Four accountancy firms along with PricewaterhouseCoopers , Ernst & Young, and KPMG....
) after the "belief the club is insolvent, or likely to become insolvent".