BY STAFF WRITERS
Current Catalans Dragons playmaker and former premiership-winning NRL star Luke Keary has taken the extraordinary step of publicly ripping Super League officials and the game in Europe to shreds calling the quality of the game “horrendous” and that players across the competition were desperate for the NRL to step in and takeover.
The Roosters legend and two-time Australian representative has told the Wide World of Sports and Damien McCartney that the English game was “begging” for the NRL to come and in buy them out.
“If [the NRL] don’t buy it they’re in a lot of trouble, all the players are open to it,” the 235-game former Roosters and Rabbitohs five-eighth said.
“I’ll go on the record saying [Super League] is in such a bad way, the game is horrendous over here.
“It’s the product, the coverage, the news around the game, there is zero. There is zero.
“Just the top teams have [strong] support and that is it.
“You watch the games, they’re near unwatchable.
“The way Sky do it now, or whoever’s got it, it’s near unwatchable, and the players all know it.
“I can’t follow it and I f***** play in it.
“You can’t watch the games, it’s so bad it’s horrendous.
“The coverage and everything, and because we’re in France too they don’t show the games.”
But Keary wasn’t finished there.
“They’re on their knees, like they’re literally on their knees begging for the NRL [to buy in].
“Then you look at it, it’ll take that much work for them to turn it around.
“They’re in a different market here, it’s hard with the football, but at the rate they’re going, I think the St Helen’s boss did an interview a few weeks ago and he just basically said, ‘we’re all like haemorrhaging so much money’.
“He’s basically pleading that they come in and take it and the players all want it.”
Momentum is building that the NRL is positioning itself for a takeover of the sport across England and France.
According to reports, Super League would be replaced by “NRL Europe” made up of eight existing Super League clubs and Catalans and Toulouse.
