Raising the standard of domestic rugby league competition is very expensive and runs into millions of kina.
PNG NRL Competition manager, Stanley Hondina, says improving the system, process and governance of the game is expensive.
He said this in response to criticisms on social media on the amount of money required by the PNG NRLC for a rugby league franchise to join the Digicel Cup competition.
The PNG NRLC and Hondina came under fire recently on social media about the cost for a franchise bid and the registration fee to join the Digicel Cup.
The bid costs K100,000 while the registration costs K400,000 annually.
The prize money for the premiership, however, is less than K100,000.
Speaking at the Central Dabari bid handover, Hondina said in reality it costs nearly a million kina to run a franchise.
“At the end when you win the cup, you don’t get anywhere close to that amount of money that you spend. It’s sad isn’t it?
“But only when we get the systems and processes in place right, we can match that gap and we can improve that. And unless that is done we can never improve in it.”
Hondina said the administration of the game was an integral aspect everyone must realise and unless that is fixed, the game itself will never evolve.
“A lot of people think about the result on the football field, the 80 minutes that the boys put the boots on and run into the field. But they ignore and forget that a lot of work has to be done at the back end. Administration of the game, the processes and the systems, the standards that have to be in place for a good performance to be put on the day.
“And we’ve slowly realised that and over the last couple of years, it’s a process that doesn’t happen overnight, and Hunters are getting there and Kumuls are getting to the quarterfinals (World Cup 2017), these are indications that are done at the back end,” said Hondina.
(PNG NRL Competition manager, Stanley Hondina – Filepic)