Tinkler and the Knights

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Knights players on receiving end of abusive texts from Nathan Tinkler’s phone



NEWCASTLE Knights players have been receiving abusive text messages from tyrannical owner Nathan Tinkler’s phone.

Only days away from being forced to hand back Newcastle’s NRL licence after a spectacular collapse as club owner, The Daily Telegraph can reveal some players have been receiving the out-of-line text messages for most of this season.

Currently one of rugby league’s most-loathed individuals, Tinkler’s reputation is poised to take a further hammering amid revelations the one-time billionaire’s phone was used to brand players “soft” and claim the club has “no heart”.



The Daily Telegraph has been told out-of-form fullback Darius Boyd has been one player who has come under fire in the text messages, including one message which insinuated the Queensland and Australian representative could be traded prior to the NRL’s June 30 transfer window.

Another player who has regularly received text messages being critical of the club and other teammates is star five-eighth Jarrod Mullen, with other senior players also believed to have been on the receiving end.

The messages were being sent as early as round two this season, with the Knights losing their opening three games of the year to Penrith, Canberra and Melbourne. The Daily Telegraph has been told the texts continued until recently.

The failed Knights owner promised to turn Newcastle into an NRL superpower when he privatised the traditionally blue-collar club in 2011.
But the Newcastle community’s patience for the tycoon’s litany of excuses about late payments to players and staff has finally run out, with the NRL poised to end the ownership feud early next week.

Contacted about the text messages, Tinkler’s right-hand man from Hunter Sports Group, Troy Palmer, said via text message: “I assume you have evidence of this as this is a serious allegation and will take whatever action available.

“Nathan has always had an excellent relationship with players. They love him. You obviously haven’t heard about how he visited Alex (McKinnon) last week a day before his ICAC hearing and helped Alex with the first movement of his legs.”

The ironic element of the messages to Boyd is the fact the Newcastle fullback is owed a $200,000 third-party payment and is fuming about the way he’s been treated.

Boyd has a get-out clause in his contract if supercoach Wayne Bennett is no longer the Newcastle coach, which appears an increasingly likely scenario given the seven-time premiership-winner’s contract is with Tinkler’s Hunter Sports Group.

Troubled owner Nathan Tinkler is set to relinquish control of the Newcastle Knights this week,after the Knights Members Club called for Tinkler's Hunter Sports Group to transfer assets back to the members

The Knights ownership dispute is expected to finally be brought to a head early next week, with the NRL head of club services Tony Crawford in continued negotiations with Tinkler, HSG and the Knights Members Club.

The Knights Members Club have been attempting to exercise their right to buy the club back for $1 for the past month, with the terms of the privatisation contract stipulating it must come debt-free.

A crucial element of the handover to the Members Club is also the $10.52 million Westpac bank guarantee.

Given the way Tinkler has chosen to do business at the Knights, there are fears the club’s level of debt could greater than previously thought.

This is most likely what the NRL has been attempting to resolve for the past eight weeks, when all parties involved have been gagged from speaking publicly.

http://www.news.com.au/sport/nrl/

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Sick. Sick. Sick to see them lash out and sick to see them use McKinnon as some type of character reference for Tinkie Winkie.

Said it all along, that this guy is bad news and would turn Newcastle into the Dark Knights.

His treatment of players must be well known throughout the player base of the league.

And I could only imagine Wayne Bennett's attitude towards it, especially when it comes to a player he is close to. Boyd.

Put him to the sword NRL!

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I hope they pay Tinkie in these....

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LOL Diehard. Wasn't there a clause in the contract about a $1 buy back?

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LOL Diehard. Wasn't there a clause in the contract about a $1 buy back?

Sure was, so they will need 20!

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GONE

Update for Members and supporters from HSG

Tinkler Group Chairman Nathan Tinkler has confirmed the Hunter Sports Group will have no further role in the Newcastle Knights and has called for immediate action to ensure a speedy transition to a new ownership model.

"This negotiation has dragged on for over 10 weeks and it is clear the Members Club has stalled the process,” Mr Tinkler said.

“After injecting over $20 million of my own money it is time to stand aside, and hopefully the Knights will prosper and not revert to the old management style and formula that almost sent the club into liquidation 3 years ago.

“Since HSG took over the Knights, we have lifted the annual spend of football operations to be over $3 million above the average NRL club.

“Commercial reality will mean staffing numbers will now need to be reviewed, grants cut to the junior League programmes and the local Newcastle competition.

"I have done my bit for the town by investing more than $20 million and saving the Knights from liquidation and now it is time for someone else to step up to the plate,” he added.
Mr Tinkler emphasised the reports in the media of a Club debt of $20 million have been exaggerated and mischievously reported.

"Any figure like this could only include money I have put onto the Club. The debts of the Club are substantially less than the $10.5 million, which is currently sitting in a bank account and not earning interest,” he said.

It is also the belief of HSG, the NRL and independent legal opinion, the original agreement does not provide for the Members Club to purchase the Knights back for $1 and receive the bank guarantee, despite being continually leaked to the media by interested parties.

“If this is the case, why hasn’t the Members Club stepped in, instead of resorting to the protracted negotiations,” Mr Tinkler said.

“We are determined to do everything to make it a smooth transition, but we require all accounts to be settled before leaving the Club - then it will be up to others to take the Club forward.

“Once all liabilities are paid there will be adequate cash flow available to support the new owners,” he added.

Mr Tinkler remains positive about the future for the Knights.

“Through our investment in junior development, our 20s are on top of the table, the Harold Matthews team won the National Title and SG Ball made it to the finals,” he said.

“Over the past 3 years we have also provided every opportunity for the Knights NRL team and coaching staff and I’m sure this will pay-off down the line.

“On a personal level, the most inspirational moment of the past three years was last week when I visited Alex McKinnon in hospital and saw what the true Newcastle spirit was all about.

“I want a successful Knights Club, which generates pride for the whole Hunter, but I can not understand why the local press simply want to criticise the Club, its players and attempt to bring down everything that is great about Newcastle and the Knights.

“If people don't put self interest in front of what is best for the Knights, the future is extremely bright.

“The Club is in a far better position than it was when HSG took over, with the Club then drowning in $7 million of debt, inadequate administration facilities and no formal training facility," Mr Tinkler concluded.

The Hunter Sports Group wish to emphasise its hope is that negotiations can conclude quickly and the NRL will support the Knights, if needed, during this transitional period.

The Club and Mr Tinkler will make no further comment.

Click here for a statement from Chairman Paul Harragon.

NRL STATEMENT ON NEWCASTLE KNIGHTS

The NRL said it will continue to lead negotiations with various parties to secure the future of the Newcastle Knights.

The Hunter Sports Group today confirmed that it will have no future role in the Knights.

“Negotiations over the new ownership structure of the Newcastle Knights are advancing and will continue next week,” Head of Club Services, Mr Tony Crawford, said.

“We remain focussed on ensuring the Newcastle Knights remains a strong and healthy club in the interests of its players, staff and fans.”

Mr Crawford said no further comments on the negotiations will be made until they have been finalised.

http://www.newcastleknights.com.au/

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A message from the Chairman

To Members and supporters

The ongoing ownership negotiations are no doubt a difficult time for all involved at the Club and that includes you, our Members and supporters.

I can assure you, we are all working together and to date, the negotiations have been positive and fruitful to ensure the best possible outcome for the Club’s long-term future.

Negotiations surrounding the ownership are ongoing and as soon as there is a resolution, you will be informed.

We ask for everyone's patience as we work through this process and your understanding that the negotiations are confidential, which is why we can’t provide a further update.

In regards to the text messages sent to players, Nathan Tinkler has a good relationship with the team and only wants the team to be successful.

Nathan has been friends with many of the current and past players before he took over the Club and still is today. He is regularly talking and texting them and as only mates can do, has on-going banter. Some of them give Nathan back more than he gives out.

We thank you for your continued support.

Sincerely

Paul Harragon

Chairman

http://www.newcastleknights.com.au/

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Nathan Tinkler will be *remembered as a tyrant after his failed foray into league

SO how will Nathan Tinkler be *remembered after his failed foray into rugby league? To be perfectly frank about it, as a complete tyrant.

And if this wasn’t a family newspaper I would be using much more colourful *language.

Just because you’re a flash Harry who turned $500,000 into almost $500 million overnight by taking a massive punt in the mining industry doesn’t give you the right to treat *people like rubbish.

That’s Nathan Tinkler’s biggest downfall. For a supposedly blue-collar bloke who started out as a sparkie in the Hunter region, I would have thought the failed Knights owner would understand the importance of treating people with some respect.

Unfortunately, everything Tinkler touches seems to be layered with ego, arrogance and a horrible bedside manner. From the Newcastle Knights to the horse racing industry to his smug appearance down at the Independent Commission Against Corruption last week, this bloke just comes across as an A-grade ****.

Sure, you’ve made and lost a lot of money. You know what Nathan, I couldn’t give a rat’s. It doesn’t give you the right to promise to get Darius Boyd a $200,000 third-party deal, not deliver and expect him to just suck it up.

Then there’s the fact that *Tinkler’s phone was used to bombard poor Jarrod Mullen, one of rugby league’s nicest blokes, with text messages criticising his teammates and the very proud Newcastle club.

Trying to deal with Tinkler and the Hunter Sports Group over the past three years hasn’t been easy.

The sky would appear it was *collapsing, with players and staff being paid late again. Yet Tinkler, through his Hunter Sports Group rep Troy Palmer, would be telling the rugby league community it was all blue skies and sunshine — business as usual.
I almost dropped my phone when Palmer tried telling me the Newcastle players “loved Nathan” on Thursday. Please. Talk to people in the Hunter about Tinkler and you’ll be flat out *trying to find anyone who’ll say a good word about him, particularly the Newcastle players.

The people who I really feel for out of Tinkler’s collapse are the Newcastle supporters. All they want is a team they can be proud of, but the way the Hunter Sports Group has conducted itself over the past three years has grossly eroded their level of trust. I feel for Matt Gidley and Paul *Harragon, two icons of the Hunter who should *always be remembered as the wonderful rugby league players they were and for the premierships they helped *deliver the Knights.

Gidley and Harragon, more than anyone else, got sucked into the *Tinkler vortex of promises and myths but have now been spat out as collateral damage. I hope the new ownership model of the club sticks by them.

All they ever wanted was for the Knights to be successful. They didn’t grasp the truth of how Nathan Tinkler does business. Who could have?

As Matty Johns outlined on Thursday, Tinkler’s privatisation of the Knights back in 2011 was a no-brainer.

A cashed-up billionaire who was a Knights supporter wanting to pour millions into the club to turn them into a superpower.

Of course the members had to go for it. But ex-Newcastle chairman Rob Tew and ex-chief executive Steve *Burraston smelled a rat.

They did their background checks on the mining magnate and found so many skeletons in his cupboard that they made Tinkler sign a $20 million bank guarantee, now a $10.52 million Westpac cheque, and write in a clause about the club’s members being able to buy the club back for $1 if it all went belly-up.

Today, the Newcastle supporters should be lining up to buy them a beer.

Good riddance, Nathan. Please don’t ever darken the doorstep of *Australian sport again.

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au

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I agree about Harragon and Gidley. Shame to see their name's tarnished by association.

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NRL favour new external management model for Newcastle Knights

Hopes that the Knights would be handed back to the community could be quashed by the NRL in favour of a new management model dominated by business people from outside Newcastle.

After the NRL's head of club services, Tony Crawford, and three associates visited Newcastle this week for another round of crisis talks, the game's governing body appears intent on having a dominant say in whatever entity replaces Nathan Tinkler's Hunter Sports Group, which announced on Friday its imminent withdrawal after running the Knights for the past three years.

It is understood the NRL favours a new seven-person board that may include five "independent" directors from Sydney or Melbourne to provide high-level business acumen.

The other two directors would be expected to include a representative from the Wests Group, which is likely to play a key role in bankrolling the Knights into the future, and another Newcastle business person.

If that model was adopted, it would appear that Knights members might have no avenue to elect representatives onto the board.

It would also appear unlikely that the Newcastle Rugby League, the body that oversees the junior and district competitions, and from which the Knights originated, would be represented.

Before the Tinkler takeover in 2011, Knights members elected a board at annual or biannual ballots, and a mandatory number of directors were included from the Newcastle Rugby League.

The NRL is understood to view such administration as old school and unacceptable as the game heads into a new era backed by a billion-dollar TV deal.

It is understood to have advised the members club to hold off on threats to launch the $1 buy-back litigation, an option that became available when HSG defaulted on a $10.52 million bank guarantee.

That would suggest the NRL wants total control of the transition, rather than the alternative scenario of allowing the members to reclaim their club on an interim basis and then hold a vote to endorse a new management structure.

On Friday, members club chairman Nick Dan said "talks are proceeding" with the NRL and nothing had been finalised.

"The NRL is helping us piece together an entity that we all expect will be a good community model," Dan said.

"They have taken into account Newcastle's interests and the fact that, for 20-odd years, it was a community club.

"They're aware of that."

In his parting statement, Tinkler said "hopefully the Knights will prosper and not revert to the old management style and formula that almost sent the club into liquidation three years ago".

Dan declined to discuss whether HSG was intent on accessing the $10.52 million currently in a joint-signatory bank account to help pay out liabilities.

Having held a four-hour meeting with members club directors on Thursday night, Crawford and his associates, as well as Knights chairman Paul Harragon and chief executive Matt Gidley, met for two hours on Friday with Wests Group CEO Phil Gardner.

http://www.smh.com.au/rugby-league/l

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The NRL should be very careful not to manipulate the process. The Members are entitled to sort their own business first and foremost. The idea that the members would have no representatives on a board makes me sick.

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Matthew Johns: Get out Nathan Tinkler, you’re no longer welcome at Newcastle Knights



MR TINKLER hurry up and give us our club back!

I was in favour of the Nathan Tinkler takeover. For a club in financial bother to have someone step forward with a billion dollars in their back pocket, offering to pay off the multi-million dollar debt and willing to back it all up with a $20 million bank guarantee, made the decision a virtual no-brainer.

The Knights members obviously thought so as well, with 97 per cent voting yes to the takeover.

But how quickly things have changed.

Put the same vote to the members now and it may well be 97 per cent the other way.

The Knights’ members and the community of Newcastle lost trust in Nathan Tinkler and his Hunter Sports Group long ago.

Tinkler came into town with a bang, he bought up big, and the cash flowed.

Novocastrians, with their blue-collar ideals are instinctively suspicious of flashy high flyers but Big Tinky was one of them.

A sparky who worked in the mines, played a bit of footy on weekends and had the guts to take a punt and struck it rich.

Up in the Hunter Valley they say you should never trust a bloke who doesn’t enjoy a beer and a punt. Tinky enjoyed both, so he was all right.

But then the stories started, local business people owed money, battlers being paid late.

The easiest way to earn disdain in a working-class town like Newcastle is to pay the little bloke last.

'Common knowledge'
The extent of Nathan Tinkler’s financial hardships and failed business dealings has been common knowledge nationwide for a while now.

But the people of the Hunter knew something wasn’t right long before.

Now the last domino appears to have fallen with the Knights’ players and coach Wayne Bennett losing faith in their owner, with news last week that up to 20 players and staff were owed money.

I feel so sorry for the players. There has been something missing from their play all season and now the dots are being joined.

Some of Darius Boyd’s performances during the last month have been nothing like that of a world-class player.

In one match he showed little interest in putting his body on the line and was more than happy on a couple of occasions to simply let high kicks hit grass.

Rumours abound that Darius is owed at least $200,000. Obviously he’s fed up, why wouldn’t he be!

The uncertainty of the situation is taking a huge toll on the team.

Don’t forget this team has had to endure so much already this season with the tragic neck injury to popular teammate Alex McKinnon.

Last Monday night they tried their hearts out and looked emotionally spent after the heartbreaking loss.

The only other club who is facing similar uncertainty is the Sharks with the ASADA investigation. Its no coincidence they are last and second last on the ladder.

It’s inevitable that the Knights’ members will regain control of the club, it’s just how difficult Nathan Tinkler wants to make it for them.

How much more damage is he going to do in the meantime?

He’s done so much already.

As Nathan Tinkler’s name became damaged in the local community, some of that has naturally affected the club.

The club too often has been caught up in Tinkler and his Hunter Sports Group’s battles.

Relationships between the Knights and some key local businesses have deteriorated badly.

The relationship between the club and local media is close to terminally damaged.

Local journos tell me they are treated like lepers.

The pre-Nathan Tinkler years at the Newcastle Knights are viewed as a poor club constantly on the brink of bankruptcy.

When I look back now, sure there were struggles, the club battled difficulty and controversies from time to time, but their was a unity between team and town.

It was a happy club. Even rival supporters sensed and appreciated what the club stood for.

Way back from when the club started in 1988 men like first grade coach Allan McMahon and lower grade coaches David Waite and Robert Finch would lecture any player who wore the jersey on what their responsibilities were when representing the town and people of Newcastle.

And for a long time we punched above our weight.

Yes, our facilities were badly outdated, we actually trained in a public gym, but none-the-less we trained hard.

The Manly Sea Eagles have come from behind to beat the Newcastle Knights, with Daly Cherry-Evans scoring a last minute field goal to win Manly the points.

The weights we lifted were rather old and rusty, but they weighed the same as the bright shiny ones. Our training ground was a little uneven and lacked proper lighting, but it probably made us concentrate harder.

We didn’t have a media manager to place media bans on us, in fact our dressing room door was always open. Journalists would just wander in and start asking questions.

And funnily enough I reckon 95 per cent of the stories they wrote were positive.

We had no sports scientist or high performance co-ordinator.

The dressing sheds were terribly cramped, the showers nearly always cold and the toilets didn’t smell too nice.

Yet despite all these apparent handicaps we still managed to win two competitions.

In recent years the Knights have lost some very good people.

When the Hunter Sports Group took control, people who had dedicated a huge chunk of their lives to the club were cast aside, no longer good enough.

People like recruitment guru Keith Onslow. A bloke who used to break out in boils every time we went on a losing streak, that’s how much he loved the joint.

Young coach Garth Brennan, who is now an assistant to Ivan Cleary at Penrith, who Phil Gould regards as the best young coach in rugby league.

Garth tells me, “I love it at Penrith, but there’s really nothing like coaching at Newcastle.”

A great friend and Knights fanatic asked me back in 2011, when Tinkler took control of the club and Wayne Bennett was announced as the coach, “Matty how many comps are we gonna win in a row?”

He rang me last Sunday and asked, “Matty, what’s happened to our club?”

Money can buy the latest and greatest but it doesn’t buy spirit and it doesn’t buy camaraderie.

Mr Tinkler give us our club back.
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/sport/nrl

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So are the Knights players and staff being paid now?

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NRL Statement regarding Ownership
http://www.newcastleknights.com.au/

The National Rugby League (NRL) said on Friday night it has reached an impasse on an agreement which would secure the future of the Newcastle Knights.

Head of Club Services, Tony Crawford said the NRL and Hunter Sports Group had agreed on a package which would make the Knights financially secure.

He said the agreement would also ensure that the Knights jersey and logo were retained and that the team would continue to play in Newcastle.

But Mr Crawford said the Knights Members Club was holding up the agreement and preventing a resolution of the matter.

“The deal we have put forward will secure the future of the Newcastle Knights and set them up as one of the financially strongest clubs in the NRL,” Mr Crawford said.

“It’s a great outcome for the club, the players and the fans – but it is being held up by the Members Club.

“The sooner we can finalise this deal the better it will be for everyone associated with the Newcastle Knights.

“So it is disappointing that the Members Club continues to hold up the process.”

Mr Crawford said the NRL would continue to keep discussions open with the parties.

Knights CEO Matt Gidley added, "From our point of view, we just want the best possible outcome for the Club and anyone who has a view that differs from this should not be involved in the process.

"We continue to trust that the NRL will ensure we reach a resolution that achieves this objective as soon as possible. "