'Two very hard years': Peter V'landys softens stance on moving grand final

ARLC boss Peter V'landys said that a decision was yet to be made about where this year's NRL grand final will be played, as his war of words with NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet rolls on.

While V'landys has repeatedly hinted at the grand final being moved to Queensland in retaliation for the NSW government's change of heart on stadium renovations at Cronulla, Leichhardt, and Brookvale, he seemed to walk back those comments slightly when asked about the threat this morning.

"The options will be looked at but we can't punish the people of NSW because of the integrity of the NSW government," he said on Nine's Today.

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"They've had two very hard years. We haven't played the grand final here last year or the State of Origin."

V'landys said he needed "time to think" about the sport's next move.

"The last thing we want to do is punish them, punish the people of NSW because of the lack of integrity of the NSW government."

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He said that a decision was likely to come by next week.

"If it stays in NSW, we need to make the decision quickly and get the tickets available for sale," he said.

Perrottet said yesterday that he was 'not accountable' to V'landys, or indeed rugby league - and would act in the best interests of the state.

But V'landys took the time this morning to repeat his comments from Wednesday, calling on the government to honour their agreements - and to also scoff at suggestions that flood victims could be used as an excuse to no longer fund the various stadium projects.

"We've had an agreement since 2017 - we've been very patient with them," he said.

"The money is set aside to be spent, but the thing that we find hard to absorb is the fact that he's using a human tragedy of the floods to spin himself out of this.

"You know, that's unconscionable. The money is there. There's billions of dollars in infrastructure funds that he's got available to him."

V'landys said the sport had provided "everything" that had been required of them - namely the NRL grand final and State of Origin fixtures.

"He gave me his word, we trusted him, he didn't want to make an announcement because of other political issues so we waited," V'landys said.

"We waited patiently and then we were just left at the door.

"I stress they've got the money, they can do it and we just can't understand why they're doing this."

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