Rabbitohs and St Helens want to play Global Round games in Hong Kong

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London: Powerful St Helens chairman Eamonn McManus has thrown his support behind a potential partnership with the NRL and says he is keen for the Saints to play a regular-season game in Hong Kong as part of the game’s ambitious Global Round plans.

McManus has been backed by South Sydney chief executive Blake Solly, who wants the Rabbitohs to get first crack at playing in Hong Kong should the NRL get Global Round off the ground to launch the 2027 season.

The interest of the high-profile Super League and NRL clubs opens the door for a historic double-header at the new 50,000-seat Kai Tak Sports Stadium that recently hosted a Tottenham-Arsenal preseason friendly.

“I’ve been pushing Hong Kong for 25 years,” McManus, who lived in the Chinese special administrative region for two decades, told this masthead.

“In the first instance I was pushing it as a venue for the World Cup Challenge. It just seemed like the natural place to go … and now they’ve got a fantastic new stadium. It’s always been a venue that is open to international sporting events. Obviously, they have the Hong Kong Sevens. The NFL have even played there historically.

“The relevant government bodies of the Hong Kong Tourist Association, Trade of Commerce, they historically have contributed significant sums to such events. We don’t want to create a circus, but what we should be having is strategic locations and select clubs and select games to hold during the course of the year without undermining our bread and butter: Super League and NRL seasons.”

South Sydney and St Helens want to play in Hong Kong during the 2027 Global Round.

South Sydney, who were part of the NRL’s first foray into Las Vegas in 2024, are again keen to take their show on the road, with Solly showing an eagerness to work with McManus on a rugby league takeover of Hong Kong.

“There’s still a lot of work to be done, and we don’t have a huge amount of detail, but we’re very interested in Hong Kong,” Solly said.

“Eamonn has great contacts and understanding of Hong Kong from his time there. If there was an opportunity to work with St Helens on that game, we’d be very happy to work with Eamonn, Mike Rush [CEO] and the team at St Helens.”

It comes just 24 hours after a significant meeting between the NRL, Rugby Football League (Super League governing body) and representatives of Hull FC, Wigan and Warrington.

Arsenal and Tottenham played a preseason friendly at Kai Tak Sports Park in Hong Kong back in July.

McManus has long held reservations over a partnership with the NRL – not because of a lack of faith in Peter V’landys and Andrew Abdo, but because of the way the conversation has been conducted over the past 12 months.

The owners of Wigan and Warrington, Mike Danson and Simon Moran, met with NRL officials in Las Vegas earlier in the year, while Solly and Wests Tigers CEO Shane Richardson have also been working on potential partnership arrangements.

But in London on Tuesday afternoon, the NRL met face-to-face with RFL counterparts for the first time and agreed to continue negotiations over a partnership that would see the NRL take managerial control of the sport in England.

“This is why I’m very happy – that it’s governing body to governing body, because that’s the only way that this will be done,” McManus said.

ARLC chairman Peter V’landys (right) with NRL CEO Andrew Abdo.

“We don’t want to hear from Shane Richardson. We don’t want to hear from Blake Solly. We don’t want to hear from Wigan. We don’t want to hear from Warrington. We want to hear from the leaders of the game in both jurisdictions.

“That’s the way the world works. That’s the way business works. That was a major step forward yesterday. We agreed totally that you need independent governing bodies. There’s no resistance about that whatsoever, and we want two independent bodies speaking to each other in the first instance.”

McManus was against the idea of a breakaway competition dubbed NRL Europe – the brainchild of Richardson, who has proposed a 10-team competition that includes two teams in France.

The St Helens chairman will not support a rebel league, and was put at ease by V’landys’ assurances to key figures in the London meeting.

Jubilant St Helens players celebrate their dramatic win over Penrith in the 2023 World Club Challenge.

“Some sort of breakway competition here would be terminal,” McManus said. “It would cause huge resentment and risks. We’re not strong enough to sustain that. The good thing is Peter V’landys put that to bed yesterday. He said that’s not going to happen. And that’s all we wanted. All the sensible people talking to each other.

“We had a club meeting a couple of weeks ago and everybody in that room was keen for us to progress and discussions to take place.”

Abdo and V’landys are in England for the Ashes series and are due to fly home after the second Test at Liverpool this weekend.

They plan to open dialogue with clubs and stakeholders when they return home about buying a potential share in the Super League.

One of the key sticking points for the NRL is a desire to have complete managerial control. It wasn’t opposed to by the RFL and McManus has back the introduction of an independent commission to rule over the sport.

“It’s becoming clear that the NRL want management control, that’s the big condition,” McManus said.

“So I think the first step is to determine exactly what that means, what the management would be, what it would determine, what the new management’s vision is to improve the sport both in England and improve the game worldwide.”