UK offers $1m to get NRL players at Cup

INTERNATIONAL Rugby League boss Troy Grant has revealed the UK government was prepared to spend than a $1m to cover all quarantine costs for NRL players and staff at Olympic Park on their return to Australia to ensure the 2021 World Cup took place.

The tournament has been thrown into turmoil after Australia and New Zealand withdrew, citing Covid-19.

One sticking point around the involvement of the Kangaroos and the Kiwis was what quarantine conditions NRLbased players would face after flying back from the UK, and whether that two-week period would then affect the start of the 2022 season.

However, Grant has claimed that World Cup organisers had secured funding to create a special precinct in Olympic Park, the same as the Australian Olympic team will experience on their return from Tokyo, which all NRL players could use to complete their quarantine in conditions far less restrictive than those the public must endure.

“The UK government has helped fund the quarantine arrangements to be far more accommodating than the very strict 14-day hotel, where you’re not allowed out of the room,” he said.

“They’ve created a precinct at Homebush where there’s exercise availability for the 14 days. The time frame is the same but it’s certainly more relaxed in that precinct than the state-run hotel quarantine program.

“That’s come at the assistance of the UK government and was one of the asks of both nations. It’s the same as the Australian Olympic team will do on their return, it’s the same the French rugby union team have done here. So there’s lots of precedent for it. It’s a process that’s even more relaxed than Hollywood actors have gone through.”

There has been a major backlash in the UK and the rest of the World Cup over Australia and New Zealand’s sudden boycott, when other major sporting events in England are taking place, and the World Cup may now be scrapped completely.

An upshot is that the Australian Indigenous and New Zealand Maori teams are circling to break away and form shock replacements for the Kangaroos and the Kiwis.

Grant will meet World Cup organisers on Monday to determine if the tournament still goes ahead in October as planned, without Australia and New Zealand’s involvement, or if it is canned completely.

The Kangaroos and Kiwis want the World Cup postponed for 12 months, but Grant admits cancellation is more likely, saying the crowded window next year would make it hard to accommodate.