COAL & Allied has extended its major sponsorship of the Newcastle Knights into a seventh season after the introduction of protocols designed to safeguard both organisations against another drugs scandal.
The Knights announced yesterday that the giant mining corporation had taken up an option to continue as the club's major benefactor for next year.
Both parties expressed a desire to make their $1.5 million-a-year "community alliance" a longer-term arrangement but shed light on the behind-the-scenes negotiations that had taken place since Newcastle was rocked last December by the drugs crisis involving Danny Wicks and Chris Houston.
Wicks and Houston were charged with a number of counts relating to drug possession and supply. They are both yet to enter pleas but resigned from the Knights soon after being arrested.
The affair left Knights management in the precarious position of having to reassure sponsors that they should continue to affiliate with the embattled club.
After a wide-ranging review process with Coal & Allied management, the Knights announced two new initiatives they hope will help maintain a squeaky-clean image: a whistle-blower scheme, by which people will be encouraged to report any illicit activity involving club players or staff to an "external, independent party", and a zero-tolerance policy for all club employees with regards to drugs.
Knights chief executive Steve Burraston said club employees could be drug-tested "any time, any place".
"We've now introduced that across the whole organisation," Burraston said.
"It won't be just our players that we'll be testing if we need to.
"It will be anyone in the organisation . . . we want to stay ahead of the game, and we certainly want to give a good impression to our community, and this is another way of doing it."
Despite insisting the Knights had "zero tolerance" to drugs, Burraston surprisingly said that did not mean players or staff would be instantly sacked if they tested positive to banned substances.
Indeed, it seemed the only change to the NRL's existing two-strikes drugs policy is that it will now relate to all employees, rather than just players.
"We have a zero-tolerance attitude to alcohol or drugs in the workplace," Burraston said.
"[But] we would still abide by the NRL's two-strike policy. The first time it's anonymous, and the second time it's dismissal.
"We feel that everyone should be given an opportunity. We've all made mistakes in our lives . . . we want to work with people in the first instance and give them a chance to rehabilitate themselves and to help them move on with their lives.
"But if we can't do it, they won't be part of our organisation."
Coal & Allied managing director Bill Champion said the new measures were important to "protect our reputation" and to demonstrate "that there was something that was going to change that would mitigate and preclude having a similar type of incident in the future".
Asked whether Coal & Allied had considered not taking up the 2011 option after the Wicks-Houston affair, Champion replied: "Our thoughts initially were thoughts of concern . . . as a sponsor, the challenge is you don't want to underreact, and you don't want to overreact."
He said Coal & Allied and the Knights worked through a "very long and serious process" to reach a mutually acceptable outcome and hoped to extend their deal beyond next year.
"Certainly in 2011 we'll be working very aggressively to look at the new contract, the next long-term contract . . . I expect our relationship to go on for years to come," Champion said.
Burraston was confident the Knights had weathered the worst of the fallout from the drugs crisis.
"I think our club has moved on from that . . . but certainly it was a difficult time for our club," he said.
"I said at the time, I don't think I ever understood how difficult it was to plan your week with meeting after meeting where you knew you were going to come under enormous pressure.
"They were nasty times. But having said that, with most of our sponsors they were appreciative of the policies and procedures we had in place and appreciative of our transparency."
As part of the sponsorship, Knights players will promote a "Play it Safe" community-awareness campaign for the next 12 months.
"Our partnership with Coal & Allied is one that we value very dearly, not only for the income that we derive from the sponsorship, but the community value," Burraston said.
"What our partnership with Coal & Allied does is give us the opportunity to influence the community in many ways, to help it."
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