The Strategic Review / Abi Ekoku (Merged Threads)

[lucky 7]

He doesn't inspire me with confidence for the games future in this country, especially when he defends England's lack of preparation for the recent ash's test series, but i want him tp prove me wrong.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/sport/37628909/rugby-league-leadership-vacuum-england-ashes/

[Deadcowboys1]

6 hours ago, lucky 7 said:

He doesn't inspire me with confidence for the games future in this country, especially when he defends England's lack of preparation for the recent ash's test series, but i want him tp prove me wrong.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/sport/37628909/rugby-league-leadership-vacuum-england-ashes/

Probably getting his name right might be a start. Ekoku!!

Once pulled me a pint in his London Crusader days at Barnet Copthall in a very makeshift bar. Given how big & athletic he was, never felt he played to the level he could. Nice bloke though.

[Dave T]

Not a particularly impressive series of quotes from Ekoku.

Edited December 16, 2025 by Dave T

[dkw]

So hes now Woods`s and his pals mouthpiece "its all the last lots fault". Pathetic.

[LeeF]

If that “interview” was supposed to make out he is going to be fantastic at his job then it failed. Some dreadful quotes and comments in there. 

[Dave T]

Interesting that he is in place due to a campaign of negativity about the last lot and the state of the game, but now he just wants positivity.

[The Future is League]

40 minutes ago, Dave T said:

Not a particularly impressive series of quotes from Ekoku.

 

32 minutes ago, dkw said:

So hes now Woods`s and his pals mouthpiece "its all the last lots fault". Pathetic.

 

16 minutes ago, LeeF said:

If that “interview” was supposed to make out he is going to be fantastic at his job then it failed. Some dreadful quotes and comments in there. 

 

1 minute ago, Dave T said:

Interesting that he is in place due to a campaign of negativity about the last lot and the state of the game, but now he just wants positivity.

He certainly doesn't inspire me for the future of the game in this country, and he doesn't see a problem with England lack of preparation for the ashes series. What planet is he on?

These are worry times for me with him and Woods at the RFL, and IF the NRL do take over the game in this country this pair need to be shown the exit and quickly.

[The Future is League]

13 minutes ago, Dave T said:

Interesting that he is in place due to a campaign of negativity about the last lot and the state of the game, but now he just wants positivity.

Saying about he couldn't see a problem with England's lack preparation for the ashes series asks serious questions about him if he couldn't see a problem.

[Tommygilf]

24 minutes ago, Dave T said:

Interesting that he is in place due to a campaign of negativity about the last lot and the state of the game, but now he just wants positivity.

A total lack of self awareness seems to be a theme at the moment.

[Damien]

1 hour ago, Dave T said:

Not a particularly impressive series of quotes from Ekoku.

It is now the 2nd very poor article I have seen from him and not what I would expect from one of the games leaders. Again it is selling the everything was so bad and needed saving by us narrative.

[The Future is League]

7 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:

A total lack of self awareness seems to be a theme at the moment.

 

4 minutes ago, Damien said:

It is now the 2nd very poor article I have seen from him and not what I would expect from one of the games leaders. Again it is selling the everything was so bad and needed saving by us narrative.

Him and Wood working together doesn't inspire me with confidence

[Harry Stottle]

1 hour ago, dkw said:

So hes now Woods`s and his pals mouthpiece "its all the last lots fault". Pathetic.

Very 'Political'! And yes Pathetic.

Edited December 16, 2025 by Harry Stottle

[Archie Gordon]

Agree with those who feel Ekoku comes across as a bit incoherent in that article.

However, we must never forget that there was a leadership vacuum made much worse by the surprise resignations of the old Board en masse. It is important that Wood and Ekoku remind us of these facts as often as they are able.

[Dave T]

This is an interesting quote from Abi Ekoku (ex-GB manager I believe):

Ekoku said: Shaun is a fantastic coach and he’s been a very successful Super League coach, but what can he impart in the middle of a season? 

“Getting the players together for camaraderie is great, but to run a physical training programme mid-season… when Shaun was head coach of Wigan, I’m not sure he would have been supportive of that.”

So - a quick look back at when Wane was at Wigan - 

2012 - 2 x mid-season Exiles games

2013 - mid-season Exiles game

2014-16 - nothing

2017 - played v Samoa in Aus

2018 - played in Denver

Also - Wane is currently employed by Wigan IIRC?

Classless from Ekoku.

[Grimmy]

3 minutes ago, Dave T said:

This is an interesting quote from Abi Ekoku (ex-GB manager I believe):

Ekoku said: Shaun is a fantastic coach and he’s been a very successful Super League coach, but what can he impart in the middle of a season? 

“Getting the players together for camaraderie is great, but to run a physical training programme mid-season… when Shaun was head coach of Wigan, I’m not sure he would have been supportive of that.”

So - a quick look back at when Wane was at Wigan - 

2012 - 2 x mid-season Exiles games

2013 - mid-season Exiles game

2014-16 - nothing

2017 - played v Samoa in Aus

2018 - played in Denver

Also - Wane is currently employed by Wigan IIRC?

Classless from Ekoku.

Just playing devil's advocate, the fact they happened doesn't mean Wane was supportive of it. Reading between the lines, is this a case of the clubs being unsupportive of releasing players mid-season and the RFL not wanting to point the finger in public? Not saying I'm right, just a possibility.

[Moominman]

2 hours ago, dkw said:

So hes now Woods`s and his pals mouthpiece "its all the last lots fault". Pathetic.

Pretty much how I see it. The guy is merely the front man and mouthpiece for the Fat Controller and his pals.

[Jack Russell]

I actually gave up reading half way through it. I couldn't take any more negativity. I was actually feeling quite positive about the upcoming year until I read that.

[CanaBull]

Not exactly inspiring sadly. His handling skills don’t seem to have improved much from his playing days. 

[M j M]

Not good enough. Being able to lead and give the impression of leadership, to speak to the press and to set out the agenda and justify the actions of the RFL is a prerequisite for this role. If we wanted someone unable to do that we could have stuck with Tony Sutton. 

Of course the previous board was a disaster, that goes without saying. But unless it is directly relevant it doesn't need mentioning any more. 

[Dave T]

1 hour ago, Grimmy said:

Just playing devil's advocate, the fact they happened doesn't mean Wane was supportive of it. Reading between the lines, is this a case of the clubs being unsupportive of releasing players mid-season and the RFL not wanting to point the finger in public? Not saying I'm right, just a possibility.

That is true, however Ekoku wasn't at the RFL at that time, so it was a $hitty thing to say on this point. But even if Wane wasn't supportive back then, the fact that most years they have had training and/or a match (at a time when we played better than we did this year!) showed that we shouldn't just listen to the clubs without challenge.

[Martyn Sadler]

The article in The Sun didn't give the full picture of what Abi said to the media last week.

In League Express we had a fuller version, which we set out below.

The current state of play

ABI EKOKU, the interim chief executive of the RFL, spoke to the media last week about a range of current issues in the game. Here is some of what he had to say.

SALFORD

When the new owners came in on the eve of the season, I've seen the due diligence carried out by the RFL and it was pretty good. Yes, we'll add another tier this time around because we're looking at financial sustainability, but really it met what you'd call fit and proper standards.
I think possibly when the owners got in, they hadn't done their due diligence in the way they should, and they found a level of debt that was greater than they anticipated. It began to unravel then. 
As a governing body at that stage, there isn't a great deal you can do. You can't step in and shadow direct an organisation. The club had promises of finance coming through and there was documentation to support that.
It's not often you get three different parties interested in a Rugby League club at the same time. All the core foundations are there, with a stadium and fantastic civic buy-in. 
Salford Council's commitment to Salford Red Devils is brilliant, and the Greater Manchester area as well. When you've got that level of support, it gives solidity and sustainability to a club. Whoever gets through, if it's acceptable to the board, the key thing is sustainability. 
You can never guard fully against any club having a crisis, especially when so many are reliant on an individual benefactor. You've always got that element of fragility. Clubs are trading, and trading well. Yes, they require subsidy, but proportionally it's similar to other sports.
Clubs go under in every sport. If what happened in rugby union a few years ago happened in Rugby League, that's an existential crisis and the game is on its last legs and won't survive. 
This year there has been talk of train wrecks. We've been around for 130 years for good reason. The game has always got challenges but every sport does. Yes, we have a fragility because individual owners are keeping clubs alive, but tell me which professional sport is not the same. Our issues are not unique.

GRADINGS

Grading has been criticised in some areas and talked about positively in others. It's there to drive standards up, to set a benchmark. It's been good in that sense, but likely any system it needs to evolve.
We looked at the different pillars of grading and said 'these ones really matter', 'these ones can be manipulated' and 'these ones can be tweaked'. This is a tweaking process. Grading is how you will get from Championship to Super League, but we've refined certain aspects within it.
There's greater emphasis on financial sustainability and on performance. I'm an advocate of promotion and relegation but it doesn't work, especially when there's a big gap between full-time professional clubs and part-time clubs. 
Grading has provided another benchmark that means if you pass all those tests, you're ready to be in Super League. But by doubling the value of winning the Championship, it means that team has a greater chance of being there.
We've got rid of the catchment pillar, which was easy to manipulate and some clubs were disadvantaged in certain areas. Those points have been taken and allocated to performance and financial sustainability.
One point will go to performance, and half a point will go to financial sustainability. All round it means you’ve got a better balance to it.

NRL

It was a very positive discussion that we had with the NRL. It was nice that they had an interest in the game here. We're waiting on them to see what their next step is. They were going to look at a variety of things and see what might work in a partnership.
There was talk of takeovers, but it's nothing like that at all. Rugby League should be the easiest sport in the world to have harmonisation, because there are only two leagues. The positivity of those discussions is you're having dialogue with your main partner and competitor, and both of you have the growth of the game at heart. 
The more we can do, the better. The greater the alignment, the better. It's ludicrous in many ways that we have one sport with two - or even three - sets of rules. Those things will align over time.
The World Club Challenge is the next cross-hemisphere event and that's sold out. Hopefully that becomes the property it could always be. Posting a sell-out in two days ticks all the boxes.

RFL GOVERNANCE

I've been fortunate to have a look from the outside in with a pretty close lens, because I was on the board.
Operationally, it's been a bit traumatised over the past 12 months. The staff in the building have worked really hard in the absence of some of us. Some people have really stepped up to the plate and taken on new responsibility.
There was a bit of a leadership vacuum left by the last board, which we inherited. It meant some of the expansionist thinking we came in with, we've had to shelve for a while and get down to the fundamentals of operating a business and growing confidence back.
It takes a bit of time to get out of the weeds, and that's where we are at the moment. A lot of issues come up - your work is never quite as it seems, whether it's Salford, Featherstone, International Rugby League, NRL discussions. Things come up and you've got to be reactive.

SPORT ENGLAND

All sports have transitional periods, that's nothing unique to Rugby League. I'm sure you'll find somewhere in Sport England's own audits, when they've been through transition and they've technically been in special measures because they're breaching their own code.
There is a clear code of governance for every sport that receives an amount of public money. The money Rugby League receives is some of the best value money the government spends, because of the reach we have and the communities we target. We're valued highly by them. 
The process was because there was a vacuum left by the departure of the last board. When Nigel (Wood) was asked to chair the board, because of his ownership of Bradford at the time - which he stepped back from - because he hadn't disposed of the shares at that time it meant we were in breach of the sports code of governance. That breach was just a technical issue, it wasn't anything operational. It wasn't to do with independence. 
It's not a big deal. We'll go through a governance action plan, which will be complete by the end of March.

STRATEGIC REVIEW

The strategic review grew, and essentially became the board.
What the strategic review has done really well is reconnected the clubs with the centre. There was a disconnect between the old RFL board and the clubs, and it was one the clubs couldn't take any longer. There was no great rebellion, this was seasoned, successful people who felt the direction of the sport was moving away from the priorities the member clubs need. They wanted change and the strategic review has served that purpose. 
Some of the strategic review recommendations are actually in action - look at the fixture list, the amalgamation of the Championship and League One, the expansion to 14 clubs. This all came from dialogue and discussion through the strategic review.
There will be a report... but it's proactive action on a regular basis. Those key findings are embedded in what we are now looking at as a board.

ENGLAND

International sport is a rough, tough environment. What you can offer as a governing body to players coming from the top clubs is always less than they get as a club. You're not a club. 
Shaun (Wane) is a fantastic coach and he's been a very successful Super League coach, but what can he impart in the middle of a season? Getting the players together for camaraderie is great, but to run a physical training programme mid-season... when Shaun was head coach of Wigan, I'm not sure he would have been supportive of that.
I'm a realist, I just don't think it's worth pandering after something that's never going to be delivered because it takes two parties. The NRL will never release their players at any other time of the year. We may want it, but it won't be a reality.
At the end of each series there is a performance evaluation and it would be disrespectful to everybody involved in that process not to get their feedback, which comes from Shaun as well. Once that is all in, the decision (on Wane's future) will be made. 
There will be no prevarication over it. It's international sport, which means you are judged at the highest levels. There shouldn't be any hesitation. There's a World Cup next year, so you want certainty in decision-making so planning can be done.
 

We can certainly be critical of him, but it's better to have the full picture rather than a partial one.

Apart from anything else I hate the passivity implied in some of his comments.

As one example, rather than waiting for the NRL to decide what it wants to do with us, we should be putting our own proposal to V'landys and Abdo, pointing out how it will benefit both us and them and getting on the front foot.

[Dave T]

17 minutes ago, M j M said:

Not good enough. Being able to lead and give the impression of leadership, to speak to the press and to set out the agenda and justify the actions of the RFL is a prerequisite for this role. If we wanted someone unable to do that we could have stuck with Tony Sutton. 

Of course the previous board was a disaster, that goes without saying. But unless it is directly relevant it doesn't need mentioning any more. 

I don't think it does go without saying tbh. This is a rare instance where I disagree with you. I don't think there is much that happened that would lead me to the conclusion that the board was a disaster. Sutton was uninspiring, absolutely, the World Cup should have done better (but did return record levels of investment into IRL and UK RL) and I do personally think we've made a right hash of things like the disciplinary and refereeing systems, but I'm not sure what else is a disaster. Plenty we may disagree on, or feel could be better, but navigating the Covid years, the legal position around head injuries, plus a governance restructure to bring in expertise has been challenging yet positive. 

I'm perfectly comfortable with the want for change in leadership - but I'm not sure anyone has ever presented anything to justify them being described as a disaster (TV deals will always be thrown at them, despite the drops coming once SLE took all power from the RFL).

[dkw]

And all this ###### on the back of a season with loads of positives to take from, positives Ekoku and his chums have chosen to completely ignore for some reason....

[Dave T]

3 minutes ago, Martyn Sadler said:

The article in The Sun didn't give the full picture of what Abi said to the media last week.

In League Express we had a fuller version, which we set out below.

The current state of play

ABI EKOKU, the interim chief executive of the RFL, spoke to the media last week about a range of current issues in the game. Here is some of what he had to say.

SALFORD

When the new owners came in on the eve of the season, I've seen the due diligence carried out by the RFL and it was pretty good. Yes, we'll add another tier this time around because we're looking at financial sustainability, but really it met what you'd call fit and proper standards.
I think possibly when the owners got in, they hadn't done their due diligence in the way they should, and they found a level of debt that was greater than they anticipated. It began to unravel then. 
As a governing body at that stage, there isn't a great deal you can do. You can't step in and shadow direct an organisation. The club had promises of finance coming through and there was documentation to support that.
It's not often you get three different parties interested in a Rugby League club at the same time. All the core foundations are there, with a stadium and fantastic civic buy-in. 
Salford Council's commitment to Salford Red Devils is brilliant, and the Greater Manchester area as well. When you've got that level of support, it gives solidity and sustainability to a club. Whoever gets through, if it's acceptable to the board, the key thing is sustainability. 
You can never guard fully against any club having a crisis, especially when so many are reliant on an individual benefactor. You've always got that element of fragility. Clubs are trading, and trading well. Yes, they require subsidy, but proportionally it's similar to other sports.
Clubs go under in every sport. If what happened in rugby union a few years ago happened in Rugby League, that's an existential crisis and the game is on its last legs and won't survive. 
This year there has been talk of train wrecks. We've been around for 130 years for good reason. The game has always got challenges but every sport does. Yes, we have a fragility because individual owners are keeping clubs alive, but tell me which professional sport is not the same. Our issues are not unique.

GRADINGS

Grading has been criticised in some areas and talked about positively in others. It's there to drive standards up, to set a benchmark. It's been good in that sense, but likely any system it needs to evolve.
We looked at the different pillars of grading and said 'these ones really matter', 'these ones can be manipulated' and 'these ones can be tweaked'. This is a tweaking process. Grading is how you will get from Championship to Super League, but we've refined certain aspects within it.
There's greater emphasis on financial sustainability and on performance. I'm an advocate of promotion and relegation but it doesn't work, especially when there's a big gap between full-time professional clubs and part-time clubs. 
Grading has provided another benchmark that means if you pass all those tests, you're ready to be in Super League. But by doubling the value of winning the Championship, it means that team has a greater chance of being there.
We've got rid of the catchment pillar, which was easy to manipulate and some clubs were disadvantaged in certain areas. Those points have been taken and allocated to performance and financial sustainability.
One point will go to performance, and half a point will go to financial sustainability. All round it means you’ve got a better balance to it.

NRL

It was a very positive discussion that we had with the NRL. It was nice that they had an interest in the game here. We're waiting on them to see what their next step is. They were going to look at a variety of things and see what might work in a partnership.
There was talk of takeovers, but it's nothing like that at all. Rugby League should be the easiest sport in the world to have harmonisation, because there are only two leagues. The positivity of those discussions is you're having dialogue with your main partner and competitor, and both of you have the growth of the game at heart. 
The more we can do, the better. The greater the alignment, the better. It's ludicrous in many ways that we have one sport with two - or even three - sets of rules. Those things will align over time.
The World Club Challenge is the next cross-hemisphere event and that's sold out. Hopefully that becomes the property it could always be. Posting a sell-out in two days ticks all the boxes.

RFL GOVERNANCE

I've been fortunate to have a look from the outside in with a pretty close lens, because I was on the board.
Operationally, it's been a bit traumatised over the past 12 months. The staff in the building have worked really hard in the absence of some of us. Some people have really stepped up to the plate and taken on new responsibility.
There was a bit of a leadership vacuum left by the last board, which we inherited. It meant some of the expansionist thinking we came in with, we've had to shelve for a while and get down to the fundamentals of operating a business and growing confidence back.
It takes a bit of time to get out of the weeds, and that's where we are at the moment. A lot of issues come up - your work is never quite as it seems, whether it's Salford, Featherstone, International Rugby League, NRL discussions. Things come up and you've got to be reactive.

SPORT ENGLAND

All sports have transitional periods, that's nothing unique to Rugby League. I'm sure you'll find somewhere in Sport England's own audits, when they've been through transition and they've technically been in special measures because they're breaching their own code.
There is a clear code of governance for every sport that receives an amount of public money. The money Rugby League receives is some of the best value money the government spends, because of the reach we have and the communities we target. We're valued highly by them. 
The process was because there was a vacuum left by the departure of the last board. When Nigel (Wood) was asked to chair the board, because of his ownership of Bradford at the time - which he stepped back from - because he hadn't disposed of the shares at that time it meant we were in breach of the sports code of governance. That breach was just a technical issue, it wasn't anything operational. It wasn't to do with independence. 
It's not a big deal. We'll go through a governance action plan, which will be complete by the end of March.

STRATEGIC REVIEW

The strategic review grew, and essentially became the board.
What the strategic review has done really well is reconnected the clubs with the centre. There was a disconnect between the old RFL board and the clubs, and it was one the clubs couldn't take any longer. There was no great rebellion, this was seasoned, successful people who felt the direction of the sport was moving away from the priorities the member clubs need. They wanted change and the strategic review has served that purpose. 
Some of the strategic review recommendations are actually in action - look at the fixture list, the amalgamation of the Championship and League One, the expansion to 14 clubs. This all came from dialogue and discussion through the strategic review.
There will be a report... but it's proactive action on a regular basis. Those key findings are embedded in what we are now looking at as a board.

ENGLAND

International sport is a rough, tough environment. What you can offer as a governing body to players coming from the top clubs is always less than they get as a club. You're not a club. 
Shaun (Wane) is a fantastic coach and he's been a very successful Super League coach, but what can he impart in the middle of a season? Getting the players together for camaraderie is great, but to run a physical training programme mid-season... when Shaun was head coach of Wigan, I'm not sure he would have been supportive of that.
I'm a realist, I just don't think it's worth pandering after something that's never going to be delivered because it takes two parties. The NRL will never release their players at any other time of the year. We may want it, but it won't be a reality.
At the end of each series there is a performance evaluation and it would be disrespectful to everybody involved in that process not to get their feedback, which comes from Shaun as well. Once that is all in, the decision (on Wane's future) will be made. 
There will be no prevarication over it. It's international sport, which means you are judged at the highest levels. There shouldn't be any hesitation. There's a World Cup next year, so you want certainty in decision-making so planning can be done.
 

We can certainly be critical of him, but it's better to have the full picture rather than a partial one.

Apart from anything else I hate the passivity implied in some of his comments.

As one example, rather than waiting for the NRL to decide what it wants to do with us, we should be putting our own proposal to V'landys and Abdo, pointing out how it will benefit both us and them and getting on the front foot.

Is there anything anywhere where he outlines what the plans are for making things better, delivering growth etc?

[Damien]

10 minutes ago, Martyn Sadler said:

As one example, rather than waiting for the NRL to decide what it wants to do with us, we should be putting our own proposal to V'landys and Abdo, pointing out how it will benefit both us and them and getting on the front foot.

Or he could be concentrating on growing and developing our competition and the game in this country instead of relying on others.