A $21 million property windfall has turned the humble Rugby Club in Sydney's CBD into the richest club in the country – and the code's heavy-hitters are watching with interest what happens next.
It is understood the Australian and NSW rugby unions are aware of the staggering sale, which has transformed the 71-year-old club from a pokies-and-schooners outfit with an annual profit in the low six-figures into a major player on the rugby landscape.
It is the sort of money rugby administrators can only dream about, with the potential to transform a cash-strapped code that is fighting for a foothold in the changing landscape of professional and grassroots sport.
But in a plan that will be presented to members at an annual general meeting next Wednesday, the club will eschew well-meaning offers of help and strategic advice from the ARU and NSWRU and set up a foundation to implement its long-standing objective of promoting and supporting the game.
There will be keen interest taken in the club's next move. Financial windfalls have not always been well spent in rugby. The $11.375 million sale of the Brumbies' Griffith headquarters in 2013 and subsequent move to the University of Canberra on a lease agreement, is a case in point. Scrutiny of that sale has mired the Super Rugby club in controversy for more than a year and is now the subject of an investigation by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission.
Rugby Club chairman Angus Bruxner declined to comment ahead of the meeting, but confirmed the board had formulated a strategic plan with the foundation at its centre.
The Rugby Club is run by a board of directors featuring former Wallabies Stirling Mortlock, Adam Freier, Dan Vickerman and other business identities with a keen interest in rugby.
The sale, which was agreed two years ago, was finalised in September 2015, with the net proceeds of the deal totalling $19.6 million invested in interest-bearing term deposits, according to the club's 2015 annual report.
"Concurrently with negotiating and completing the sale of the property the board of the club has been formulating a strategic plan for the future club," the report states. "This strategic plan, which presently includes the establishment of a foundation, will continue to be developed and implemented by the board in a manner which will be in the best interests of the club, its members and rugby in general."
Chinese property giant Wanda bought the site at 31A Pitt Street, but the club negotiated to stay there on a lease agreement until next month. It is understood the club will take up new premises but no longer operate a bar, with members able to access affiliate clubs around the CBD.
Since its inception in 1945, the Rugby Club has housed the ARU and NSWRU, and also lays claim to being the location at which plans were hatched to host the first Rugby World Cup. This year it hosted a lunch with the Rugby Union Players' Association to mark the 20th anniversary of professionalism.