Long walk to rugby league: How his brother’s death and Mandela helped shape Andrew Abdo

The easy assumption about Andrew Abdo is that he isn’t his own man. When ARL Commission chairman Peter V’landys says jump, the NRL chief executive promptly asks, “From which floor, chief?”

“I’m aware of the perception but I’m very comfortable with the way he and I operate,” Abdo, 45, responds calmly. “I’ll never do something I’m not comfortable with and I’ll never compromise my integrity or what I believe to be right. But I also know what my place is: the chief executive reports to the board. You need to box clever.”

Andrew Abdo at NRL headquarters in Moore Park.Credit:Janie Barrett

The truth is Abdo was working out his own identity long before he met V’landys, long before he took on the toughest job in Australian sport, long before he knew what rugby league was. He’s lived a lot of life.

Growing up in a small coastal town in apartheid South Africa, then watching his country’s rebirth following Nelson Mandela’s release from prison, he developed a strong sense of justice and fairness.

The tragic death of his 18-year-old brother, Antony, in a motorbike accident when Abdo was still in primary school instilled in him the sort of empathy that follows crushing grief.

“I was an awkward kid,” Abdo says. “Nervous and shy, living in my brother’s shadow. He was really good at sport. All the way through high school, I was just finding my way as a Lebanese kid in a small town. But I became quite driven to test myself against the harshest conditions to see what I was capable of.”

It has taken Abdo some convincing to talk publicly about his life.

He first told me his story over coffee in late 2020 after replacing Todd Greenberg as chief executive but was reluctant about talking on the record. As he pointed out, the players are the stars of the show, not officials.

But the hot seat of NRL chief executive is different to most. It’s a thankless job in which a conga line of critics, from club chief executives to reporters who can’t even pay their credit card on time, tell him how they could be doing a better job.

In the lead-up to the grand final each year, former ARL general manager John Quayle drops a line to the game’s current chief executive because he understands how difficult it can be.

Todd Greenberg (right) and Peter V’landys did not see eye to eye at the end of the former’s tenure at the NRL.Credit:Edwina Pickles

It’s a tradition former office-bearers David Gallop and Greenberg have continued, dropping messages of support last year to Abdo.

It was speculated that the job became so difficult for Abdo early into his tenure that he contemplated an early exit.

“No, that’s not right,” he insists. “Did I have moments when I felt overwhelmed? Of course. Frustrated? Absolutely. But I’m not a quitter.”

To understand this, we need to transport ourselves to a place called East London on the east coast of South Africa in the 1980s. It’s a poor town, hence its nickname: Slum Town.

‘People were treated far worse, but I had a sense of what apartheid felt like … We understood we were outsiders and different.’

Abdo is the youngest of three children to Athol and Joan Abdo. Athol is the son of Lebanese migrants and runs his own law firm. Joan is of Scottish descent.

“I was teased because of the darkness of my skin in a country that was coming out of apartheid,” Abdo recalls. “Lebanese people were considered borderline. We were categorised as dark-skinned people. People were treated far worse, but I had a sense of what apartheid felt like. The Lebanese are a tight community, so I grew up with lots of cousins, aunts and uncles. We understood we were outsiders and different.”

There have been several defining moments in Abdo’s life, but nothing compares to the death of his brother in a single-person accident when Andrew was 12 years old.

“He was coming home from a party, not drunk, just a freak accident coming around a corner,” Abdo says. “It wasn’t until I became a parent that I understood what my parents were going through after he died. I was grieving the loss of a brother and my best mate. My parents had lost a child and that’s unnatural.”

Abdo initially tried to escape the grief by spending a year on exchange with a high school in York in the north of England.

“It was my first exposure to rugby league,” he smiles. “Watching Wigan and St Helens … I loved it. I thought, ‘Why does this not exist in South Africa?’”

Nelson Mandela hands South African captain Francois Pienaar the Webb Ellis Trophy.Credit:Getty Images

In 1995, he experienced another seminal moment while studying to become a bachelor of business science at the University of Cape Town.

He and a syndicate of his uni mates went in the lottery for tickets to the Rugby World Cup final and surprisingly found themselves sitting in the front row at Ellis Park for the decider between South Africa and the All Blacks among 60,000 people.

The crowd stirred. Then Nelson Mandela entered the arena.

“Unexpectedly, he came out wearing the No.6 jumper [of captain Francois Pienaar] in Springbok colours,” Abdo says. “The whole crowd started chanting ‘Nelson! Nelson! Nelson!’ I was getting goosebumps, chills down my spine, because 60,000 people were chanting the name of someone who’d been in jail for no crime whatsoever. He was someone who had every right to be bitter but chose not to be.

“What ignited me in that moment was the power of sport. Mandela saw that sport can unite people. It’s the language that young people understand. It’s an equaliser. The country could’ve gone into civil war, but Nelson Mandela was the difference.”

Neither South Africa winning the World Cup, nor Mandela handing Pienaar the trophy, solved the problems of the Rainbow Nation. It remained a dangerous country.

As a young financier and father, Abdo was held up at knifepoint, his laptop stolen. Windscreens were smashed at traffic lights, wallets stolen, the family home cleaned out while on holidays despite having an alarm system and electric fencing. Clearly, the security company had been in on it.

He moved the family to Bermuda for a year for work, and while New York had always been his destination, a family holiday to Sydney changed their lives forever. In 2012, they moved to Australia permanently.

Abdo says he never had designs on replacing Greenberg as chief executive, although colleagues report he has always been ambitious.

Indeed, as far back as February 2020, it was evident V’landys wanted him to replace Greenberg, even if all parties deny this.

While Greenberg attended the World Club Challenge in the north of England, the chairman and Abdo, who was then chief commercial officer, were in the US asking Fox Corp boss Lachlan Murdoch for permission to set up a second Brisbane team.

Andrew Abdo says he never had designs on replacing Todd Greenberg as NRL chief executive.Credit:Janie Barrett

“I’m a very ambitious person, and I wanted to be a CEO, but I didn’t join the NRL to become the CEO,” Abdo says.

It was never discussed with V’landys prior to Greenberg’s exit?

“We never spoke specifically about it,” he says. “I had no designs on it.”

Either way, it has been a baptism of fire.

One Saturday morning last year, when the Queensland government suddenly called off all sport, Abdo entered his home office and didn’t come out until the following morning.

Apart from the wrecking ball of COVID-19, he has had to address the game’s parlous financial state; rocked and rolled with the RLPA; been accused of going light on players for off-field indiscretions; and been called out for taking a bet each way on player vaccinations.

Whenever the NRL does something right, V’landys gets the credit. When it doesn’t, it’s Abdo’s head that’s kicked.

More recently, he’s come under fire from South Sydney chief executive Blake Solly, who took umbrage at Abdo smiling when announcing the 2022 draw and the anticipated return in round three of fullback Latrell Mitchell — against the Roosters.

Solly felt the game was using up Mitchell, who was suspended for breaking the cheekbone of Roosters centre Joseph Manu.

‘I’m thick-skinned enough to realise some habits die hard and not everyone is going to buy into what you achieve. But we don’t always have to fight about things.’

“I was disappointed with that,” Abdo says. “To insinuate the game would use anyone like that is ridiculous … There’s not a lot of trust, and a perception of arrogance from head office. I’m thick-skinned enough to realise some habits die hard and not everyone is going to buy into what you achieve. But we don’t always have to fight about things.”

Maybe … but what would be the fun in that?

THE QUOTE
“When I suck, I’ll retire.” — Tom Brady on the eve of the 2014 NFL season. He announced his retirement earlier this week, presumably tired of waiting to play poorly.

THUMBS UP
Evonne Goolagong Cawley presenting Ash Barty with the Daphne Akhurst Memorial Cup with Cathy Freeman in the stands of Rod Laver Arena taking pics with her mobile phone like a starry-eyed fan. Magnificent stuff.

THUMBS DOWN
The SCG Trust has a habit of getting too cute in the naming of grandstands. It still stuns that the Victor Trumper Stand isn’t named after Steve Waugh. Tibby Cotter Bridge … Hello? But the naming of the Garrison Stand ahead of Roosters legend Arthur Beetson — or many other sporting greats — is bureaucratic madness.

It’s a big weekend for … Justin Langer, whose future as Australia’s men’s Test coach is likely to be decided when the Cricket Australia board meets on Friday. He hasn’t helped himself with a reported “meltdown” in a meeting with chief executive Nick Hockley and head of performance Ben Oliver.

It’s an even bigger weekend for … the Winter Olympics, which has seen off coronavirus and myriad calls for boycotts. The opening ceremony is being held in Beijing on Friday. A team of about 50 Australian athletes will look to add to our all-time medal tally of five gold, five silver and five bronze.

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