Warriors may leave if booted from Mt Smart

Warriors are likely to have to exit Mt Smart within four years. Photo / Getty Images

Warriors boss Jim Doyle will consider taking the club out of Auckland if the team are forced from Mt Smart Stadium and says it might also put the future of the NRL Nines in Auckland in doubt.

The Auckland Council are set to vote on the final budget for the current 10-year plan early next month, and an affirmative vote will lock the strategy in place.

It would mean the Warriors would have to exit Mt Smart within four years, as the venue is converted into a speedway facility. But Doyle is mystified about the plan.

Warriors CEO Jim Doyle questions the due diligence of the Regional Facilities Authority. Photo / Michael Craig

"We don't want to move [and] the majority of speedway don't want to move," said Doyle. "I know cricket won't complain - they are getting another ground for free to use it only once a year - but there is no long-term logic in the plan."

Doyle questions the due diligence of the Regional Facilities Authority, the council-controlled organisation that manages Auckland's stadiums.

"I've asked them to show me the five or six other options they considered before they decided Mt Smart was the best and logical option for speedway," Doyle said.

"I'd like them to show all the other options considered before they decided Albany was the best venue for rugby league. And I asked the CEO of Auckland Council 'can you show me the five or six other locations you considered for cricket?' That is normal, standard practice in business before you make any big, long-term decision but the RFA haven't produced any evidence of that yet."

On the eve of the Auckland Council 'go/no' decision, Doyle also:

Disputes that the Warriors require significant spending on Mt Smart, saying as a minimum the club want to create only a "safe and healthy environment" for fans. This is in response to the RFA's widely-publicised price tag of $75 million to convert Mt Smart into an international standard facility.

Confirms the club will explore options outside Auckland, including Hamilton, Rotorua and New Plymouth, for home games should they be shut out of Mt Smart.

Says the future of the pre-season NRL Nines will come into question in Auckland, should the stadiums strategy proceed.

"I don't think the NRL would look favourably on it," Doyle said. "If there is no support for the Warriors from the city and they get kicked out of their home, why would they [the NRL] support the city? It took a lot of work to get the event here. And if the city is not going to support us, why would we support the Nines staying in Auckland? We are being told - not directly but indirectly - that Auckland and the Council doesn't really want us. They are certainly putting cricket and speedway ahead of the Warriors."

Wants more time to fully explore all options, including increasing revenue into Mt Smart by attracting a naming-rights sponsor, among other ideas.

While a small majority of the Council still favour the RFA strategy, Doyle has found vocal support among some councillors.

"This is sporting vandalism on so many levels," said councillor John Watson. "What they are proposing at Mt Smart makes no sense - the partial destruction of large sections of a stadium that has already had tens of millions of dollars invested in it to make it purpose-built for rugby league. That's impossible to explain. And then a huge investment in QBE [North Harbour], a stadium that has struggled to get events and one the Warriors won't go to."

Watson added that the RFA had shown themselves to be "completely out of touch" with the sporting codes and Auckland sporting public.

"I can't see the payback for ratepayers," said fellow councillor Alf Filipaina. "Spending millions to build a cricket stadium at Western Springs for the sake of one game per year? That doesn't add up and is not worth the investment. And three cricket stadiums in Auckland while you dismantle the only league-specific ground? League has always been the poor cousin and it shows."

Mt Eden ward councillor Christine Casey said she doesn't support "an expensive new cricket ground at Western Springs", which would become a "white elephant".

Councillor Mike Lee said: "I am opposing RFA's stadium scheme, which is deeply unpopular and way too expensive."

New RFA chief executive Chris Brooks was reluctant to comment, having been in the job only a month. He conceded "there may be opposition, which the RFA and its board will take into account, but there is always a way forward on these things".

"There are two elements in play here," he added. "Firstly, there is the strategy but also how it is implemented. Our key goal is to deliver more value for ratepayers and be more efficient and integrated in how we run stadiums."

Brooks described Western Springs as a "unique opportunity" to deliver a "multisport venue" for Auckland.

He has yet to meet the Warriors or speedway and preferred not to comment until such time.