Doust douses threat of lobby group influencing Dragons set-up
By LUKE KEENAN
Illawarra Mercury - 9/3/06
THE Return To Kogarah group is stepping up its campaign to slash Illawarra's status in the joint venture Dragons.
Three spots on the St George Leagues Club board are up for grabs during a four-day ballot, starting Monday week, and R2K has endorsed three of the nine candidates.
The group espouses charging the Steelers full interest on their multi-million-dollar loan to bring in an additional chunk of revenue to the leagues club. R2K also wants to hold at least half of the Dragons' games at Oki Jubilee Stadium each year and increase the ground's capacity.
For the 2006 season, counting the pre-season trial against the Roosters, seven matches will be played in Wollongong and five at Kogarah.
But Illawarra supporters of the red and whites need not panic just yet, given it would take years for the group to possibly control the board, with only three board members up for re-election each year.
Among the nominated candidates this time around are Dragons chairman Warren Lockwood and former Dragons chief executive Brian Johnston.
"When we've been back at Kogarah for more than three years, it strikes me as quite unusual that that organisation still exists," Dragons chief executive Peter Doust said.
"But it is a democratic society and there's nothing wrong with people standing for election to the St George Leagues Club board."
Doust added that the loan arrangement with the Steelers was a complex issue regularly re-assessed.
"Those arrangements are always under review by the board of St George Leagues Club, but we feel that the best interests of rugby league long term are for the Steelers to be viable," he said.
"And so what we're trying to do is help them to sustain a long-term future. I think just promoting the fact of paying interest is not necessarily taking all the commercial circumstances into account."
As far as the split of games between Wollongong and Kogarah, Doust said that was not a matter for the leagues club.
"That's not a leagues club issue anyway, it's a St George Illawarra Dragons issue and those things are quantified in the joint venture agreement, so I don't know why that's a platform for a St George Leagues Club election," he said.
Doust was proud of the developments at Oki Jubilee, including the installation of new lights: "I appreciate their interest, but I challenge anybody to be critical of what we've achieved in the last few years."
