NRL club retreats into survival mode 50 staff hit by Cowboys move

AFTER just two weeks in control North Queensland Cowboys chairman Lewis Ramsay announced the standing down of more than 50 staff.

The move comes in response to the NRL’S decision to suspend the 2020 season due to the coronavirus pandemic and leaves a skeleton staff to handle administrative duties.

The majority of the club’s administrative team and football department – including coach Paul Green (pictured) and director of football Peter Parr – are without roles for the foreseeable future.

Mr Ramsay said that while the NRL was working on scenarios to resurrect the season there was no guarantee what that would look like.

For that reason, he said, they were preparing for the best and worst case situations to guide the Cowboys’ long-term sustainability.

And while he was unable to specifically touch on the club’s fi- nancial position, Mr r Ramsay was adamant they would survive this ordeal.

“The board has decided on this position that to ensure the survival of the club we need to preserve the e club for the benefit of f all stakeholders in the future,” he said.

“The decisions we’ve made are in the interest of achieving that.

“We’re prepared to dig in, the reason these decisions have been made are to ensure we’re here for the long haul.

“The North Queensland Cowboys have been through tough times before and we intend to be here for a very long time, so we needed to take definitive action and make some really quick decisions once the announcements n made m this week.” Cowboys CEO Jeff R Reibel said the changes w would have ramificati tions across their community endeavours as well, such as Cowboys House – the extent of which will continue to be determined as the si situation develops.

A As for the future of the club, he said two important areas were the anticipated Community, Training and High Performance Centre as well as the survival of their QRL feeder teams.

Mr Reibel said the $20 million NAIF loan secured last year would be kept for the high performance facility, while communication with the Townsville Blackhawks, Northern Pride and Mackay Cutters would continue to look at possible solutions on how they could keep afloat. were

>> Aged at least 70 years

>> Indigenous and aged at least 50

>> Pregnant

>> A parent of a child under 12 months >> Immune compromised

>> Have a chronic medical condition that results in increased risk from coronavirus infection.

“Recognising, diagnosing and referring for mental health care is a critical thing we need to do right now,” Dr Clement said. “But by the arbitrary rule that the Federal Government has put in place means we can’t do that, which is crazy.

“At the moment a general way of summarising it is vulnerable patients or GPS are able to utilise or gain a Medicare rebate, everybody else has to pay. But moving forward we’re hoping everybody will be entitled and the mental health care plans will be included.”

A statement from Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt said a more comprehensive telehealth “whole of population model of care” would be confirmed by the end of the week.