ARL Commission chairman John Grant hopes a replacement for David Gallop will be found within two months and says interest in arguably the most difficult and stressful role in Australian sport has been significant.
Grant also revealed the ARLC must have the ongoing negotiations for the multi-million dollar television rights settled no later than November 1.
Both issues were discussed at a meeting Grant had with club officials in Sydney on Thursday.
The ARLC has appointed executive search firm Spencer Stuart to assist the recruitment of a new CEO and said a list of candidates would soon be whittled down to “five or six”.
“A remuneration committee, chaired by (commission member) Catherine Harris, will then interview those five or six to try and reduce it to two and then the full commission will get involved,” Grant said.
“We hope to do that in a period of two months, but it may be a month or so after that that we see a new CEO depending on the successful candidate’s notice period.”
Despite the many stresses of the job, there had still been enormous interest with Grant himself even flooded with CVs of perspective candidates.
“The enthusiasm for the position and the opportunity is very significant,” Grant said.
Gallop’s exit has caused concern the new television rights deal might be derailed but Grant was adamant his departure has had no effect on ongoing negotiations.
“There’s no impact from David not being part of the detailed negotiating. That was never the plan,” Grant said.
“I can’t expand on where we’re at in the process but … we’ve got to have new money coming into the business on the 1st of November, so that’s our deadline.
“We’d love it to be done before that. All we need is one of the networks to come in with the right number and we’ll do it tomorrow.”
Much has been said about Gallop’s shock exit after his decade-long tenure but Grant denied any claims he (Gallop) was pushed to leave on June 5.
“We did not ask David to leave that day,” he stressed.
“It was appropriate for David to leave, but we didn’t ask David to leave that day.”
Grant also revealed that Gallop ignored advice to hold a joint media conference with the ARLC, instead choosing to make the announcement solo.
“We spoke with David about how he would conduct the announcement and we advised him we should do it together and his choice was not to do it together and that’s David’s choice,” Grant said.
“The day was not about us – the day was about David exiting in the right fashion and we’re going to still make that happen … there’s going to be an appropriate way that David’s 10 years is acknowledged.
“But everyone needs to move through this and David needs to find his next stage.”
