News Corp bosses boycott Origin as V'landys goes to war over drugs question
Senior executives and editors at News Corp boycotted the offer of NRL hospitality at last week's State of Origin match in Brisbane amid a war of words with Australian Rugby League Commission chairman Peter V'landys.
V'landys expressed frustration and displeasure with the editors of The Daily Telegraph, The Courier Mail and Code Sports over the contents of a recently released series about rugby league player-agents titled 'The Deal Makers'.
The series was based on a survey of 50 player-agents on some of the biggest issues in the game, including a question relating to the use of recreational drugs in rugby league.
The agents were asked, 'Is drug use a problem with players?' with 62 per cent responding yes.
That led to a series of heated phone calls between V'landys, and other NRL executives, and News Corp Australia executive chairman Michael Miller, Telegraph editor Ben English, sport executive editor Jason Scott and Queensland editor Chris Jones.
Sources with knowledge of the situation – talking on the condition of anonymity due to the confidential nature of the phone calls – said V'landys took exception to the way the question was phrased, believing it incorrectly portrayed the NRL as having a widespread issue with drugs.
The game has already had to deal with a number of recent headlines relating to players and drug issues – most notably involving Brayden Trindall, Josh Addo-Carr and Ezra Mam – and V'landys believed he needed to protect the reputation of the players.
It resulted in several senior News Corp executives ignoring invitations to attend last week's Origin as guests of V'landys in the NRL's corporate suite at Suncorp Stadium.
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