Australian rugby league side Gold Coast Titans have been taken over by the sport's governing body in a move to secure the club's long-term future.

The decision comes in the wake of the drugs scandal which has rocked the club.

National Rugby League chief executive Dave Smith said the Titans were facing serious financial difficulties and the NRL has, therefore, decided to terminate their licence and take over the running of the club itself.

The club has been placed in voluntary administration by the directors after conceding they could no longer continue to meet their financial obligations, including staff and player salaries.

"The only difference for Titans fans is that they will have the security of knowing their team has a long-term future on the Gold Coast," Smith said.

"This is an important region for rugby league and the Titans remain part of our long-term plans for the game. This move will give the club a fresh start with the certainty that the players, staff and fans want."

The Titans are the second club to come under the wing of the governing body after the NRL took control of Newcastle Knights.

Two previous Gold Coast clubs in the top-flight domestic rugby league competition have folded, and the region had a poor track record of supporting football clubs in national competitions.

The Titans are also without a major sponsor less than two weeks from the kick-off of the 2015 NRL season and did not have long-term deals in place for training venues.

Five players, including New South Wales State of Origin forward Greg Bird, have been stood down from the Titans playing group after being issued with notices to appear in court next month to face drug-related allegations. All five have denied the charges.

Smith added: "There have been a series of problems. These problems are too big for the existing board to get across.

"It's not the end of the world and we will solve these problems. We will build a club the fans can be proud of."


Is this something fatty woods could have done for London?

They did in 1993 !

Enigmatic must still be asleep!!!

Still the middle of the night out there - give 'The Enigma' a few hours........

Yes RFL could but highly unlikely with the current regime. Too much self interest for the big picture to be addressed. Uncle Mo was the last one with true national vision and he sort of got shot down though perhaps the forced mergers was a step too far, too soon. NRL have a strategy for the game across Australia though do benefit from the NRL being a closed shop with a lower tier which operates to an extent independently, thus for their league they can focus where they want a top flight team to be developed. Stepping in at the Titans is a temporary measure which will probably clear out the current ownership allowing new ownership to take over taking the club forward I doubt the RFL have a strategy beyond the next purchase of milk for the tea.

There is no reason for the RFL to save LB while playing in the championship. However if we had been in SL maybe this is a serious question and is something that has been raised on this board in the past.

Yep,the question seems academic now. There would be no reason to save us even if we did get back to SL as clearly the world hasn't ended without us there.

What would you like me to have said?

If you want to fund expansion then it needs to be done centrally and the LONG TERM BENEFITS need to be sold to and understood by all concerned. Instead, we've had 4 years of Licensing before they started to search for an alternative and the game has contracted in size and regional demographic as a result.

Less Players, 22 of the top 24 sides playing north of sheffield, a sponsor who pays us per customer, a TV deal that restricts us and a fan base that will only turn up to major games if they are heavily discounted.

The RFL and SKY should have bankrolled London and PSG at the start of SL. If the other 10 clubs wanted to play in the new comp, then they would have had to accept 20% less revenue each which would have gone to these "expansion" clubs (800k each for the 10, 1 million each got the 2) and if they didn't like it, they could have stayed where they were and perished. 800K a year was about 800K more than they would get if they turned it down.

This is the major difference now. The NRL is starting to flex its muscles at the clubs. It negotiated a massive TV deal and immediately started planning for the next one......the RFL meekly accepted the SKY deal.

So, to answer your initial question, nope, Fatty Wood shouldn't have saved London......because if they'd done it properly in the first place, London wouldn't have needed saving and by the time Hughes "wobbled" their was SFA left to save.

So the Titans, are now a 4th club bankrolled by the NRL in 18 months, how exactly does that help the NRL? Also, where do the RFL suddenly get the money to bankroll London or Paris or anyone else for that matter.

Sponshorship and TV deals are down to the RFLs ineptitude and unwillingness to SELL themselves elsewhere, no offence GF but I was against "franchising/licensing" back then and I'm still agin it now. Selling what we have PROPERLY is the key, MARKETING what we have PROPERLY helps!!!! Telling those who repeatedly shaft us to stick it where the sun don't shine, will help!

As I said, pre-SL the clubs were on 0 revenue. Murdoch gave the game rl87mrl to switch to summer and between 1999 and 2003, there was 11.4 million per season in tv Cash.......some of that would have been a good place to start!

If you'd divided that 11.4 between 12 you got 950,000 each. If you divided it between 13 it's 877,000 each, with London getting 1,750,000........as I've said before, your average northerner would have choked on his faggotts, but the GAME would have benefitted. The London club would have been owned by the comp and the opportunity for loan players to join us to help their development may have been more attractive.

Instead, we have in all probability flushed 30 million in SKY cash and 40 in Private investment down the tubes over 19 SL seasons and all we have to show for it are a handful of cockneys plying their trade north of the gap, 150 or so die hard season ticket holders and nowhere to call home.

When 888 is binned and a London outfit are again invited to the top table (dreams of the skolars/hemmel etc are just that....dreams), then the ownership model outlined above is the only way forward. By all means build the David Hughes Stadium and erect a statue of the guy on each corner, but a single investor ownership model just wont work in the capital. If the other clubs/the game owns it, then the time and effort needed to make it a success becomes key to all of them.