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After a 20-year career in journalism – most of it for this masthead – Michael Chammas has just resigned to become general manager of the newest NRL club, the Papua New Guinea-based PNG Chiefs, as they prepare to enter the competition in 2028. I spoke to him this week, shortly after his first board meeting in Port Moresby.
Fitz: Michael, this is, if I might say, a significant moment in your life. I am half tempted to begin by warbling Adele’s Hello from the Other Side … This is your first time on the other side of the tape recorder. How does it feel?
MC: Odd. I’ve also just attended my first press conference in Port Moresby in this role. I was glad, when it ended, that I didn’t have to go back and transcribe the quotes.
Fitz: But here’s the thing. On the eastern seaboard of Oz, there are only two kinds of print journalists: those who work for the artist formerly known as Fairfax, and those who wish they worked for the artist formerly known as Fairfax. You’ve not only done that, but you’ve done it brilliantly. Other people would kill for a career like you have had. You’re right up there with [Nine sports reporter] Danny Weidler when it comes to your hit rate of breaking big stories. I don’t get you leaving that?
MC: [Laughs] I would not disrespect Danny by comparing myself to him. He’s the king! For me, it’s not about leaving journalism. It’s about staying in rugby league. It is the game that I love. When I was nine months old, my parents threw me over the fence at a sold-out Jubilee Oval to watch the Dragons [St George]. In kindergarten, the teachers told my parents, “Your son doesn’t know his numbers. ‘Number one’, he keeps calling him ‘Mick Potter’. Number two is ‘Ricky Walford’ [both former players]. What is going on?”
Fitz: And …?
MC: Well, rugby league was everything to me. It always has been. I played for almost 20 years in the Parra [Parramatta] comp. I just wasn’t good enough. I barely passed English at school, but I loved rugby league, and I worked my arse off to make sure that I could be involved in the game somehow, and that’s how I ended up in journalism. I’ve loved it for 20 years, and it has been an absolute privilege, but I’m ready for a new chapter. I honestly believe the Chiefs are going to be a success, and to be part of the inaugural team that puts this together, it’s special. I have no regrets.
Fitz: “No regrets”? Mate, I’m glad you’ve got no regrets, ’cos you’ve been doing it for all of FIVE MINUTES! How did this gig come about?
MC: In 2024 [chair and head coach of the Sydney Roosters] Nick Politis and Trent Robinson invited me into the inner sanctum of the Roosters in LA. I got to spend four days with them in the lead-up to their season-opener against the Broncos in Las Vegas. I sat in on team meetings, went to team dinners, watched the halves do their work in video sessions, things like that. Something changed from that day. I didn’t just want to write about it any more. Ricky Stuart and Craig Fitzgibbon gave me the chance to do the same thing with the Raiders and Cronulla last year. It was an incredible experience. In journalism, I loved taking on News Corp, but the chance to actually build a team, and having that common goal with everyone to win a premiership, I wanted that.
Fitz: And good luck to you. But what qualifies you to do that heavyweight gig, when you have no track record of doing anything remotely close to it?
MC: I can understand when people say “but you’ve never run a football team before.”
Fitz: But you’ve never run a football team before!
MC: Very few general managers who walk into a role for the first time have got the network of contacts that I have in the game. I know all the club chairs, the CEOs, the recruitment managers, the player agents and the players. I’m not naive: there’s a lot to learn. But I will surround myself with the right people. I’ve never been afraid of hard work.
Fitz: How will you get players and coaches to go to Port Moresby? All of us who have visited PNG love the place, and more particularly the warm-hearted people. But, by any measure, Moresby can be very dangerous. I genuinely mean no disrespect to that wonderful country when I say if you put 50 PNG “raskols” (gang members) in a room with the 50 toughest bikies in Australia and called out “FIGHT!” my money would go on the raskols to be wearing the bikies’ balls for earrings within five minutes. So, how do you get people to go there?
MC: By giving them an adventure of a lifetime. If they are just coming for a pay cheque, they’re not the people we want. We want players who want to come here and embrace this country. And, obviously, there are going to be some strong security measures that are going to be taken care of, but those who want to be part of it are going to be treated like royalty over here. They’re going to be absolute rock stars in a way they won’t be treated anywhere else. But also, we create an environment that they love, and their families will love. The families are the key.
Fitz: Will you live there with Mrs Chammas and your three beautiful kids?
MC: Of course! I can’t sell the dream to players if I don’t live it myself.
Fitz: What did your fine wife say at the prospect?
MC: We came over a couple of weeks ago to look it over. We both know it will be a great adventure for us and our kids. We’re excited.
Fitz: But convincing others of that? Without pissing in your pocket, one of your other features as a journalist is that you’re not known to piss in other people’s pockets – you are not an FWT, Fan With a Typewriter. You’ve gone in hard. You’ve revealed scandals, exposed rorts, written up atrocities. There’s got to be people who cross the street when you are trying to do business on Big Boofy Blokes Boulevard in Burly Heads?
MC: Maybe. People might not have liked everything I wrote, but I hope that I’ve always been fair.
Fitz: OK. I speak now on behalf of the Australian taxpayer. The PNG Chiefs have got $600 million out of the federal government over the next 10 years. WTAF?? What are you doing with our money?
MC: Yeah. Well, one thing you’re never going to get me into is a discussion on geopolitics. You want to know about what kind of players we’re after, we can chat. Look, I know everyone’s got to write to their own opinions on what the Australian government has agreed to. But I know that to the people of PNG, this is going to be massive. And it’s our job to make sure that we do them proud.
Fitz: OK, but hang on. The salary cap is a lazy $12 million between friends, and we taxpayers are giving you – dot four, carry five, subtract two – $60 million a year! Where’s the rest of our money going??? These are the legitimate journalistic questions, you are now on the other end of?
MC: I don’t know the ins and outs of everything that was agreed between the governments, but a lot of that money is going to [government programs] as well, not just the PNG Chiefs. There’s plenty of planning going into the infrastructure and resources we’ll need to build for the team and for the city to accommodate us.
Fitz: That’s a whole lot of pathways and infrastructure!
MC: Yeah, there’s a lot of work to be done in the Pacific, Fitz.
Fitz: Sure, but that team will be having a turnover, no joke, of tens of millions of dollars a year! Jesus wept, Michael, that’s a massive amount of money in anyone’s language, and it is legitimate to ask what credentials you have to run it?
MC: I’m not trying to avoid the question with you around the way the money is spent and what the plans are, but my job is to help build a successful football program. The answers you want are probably better sought from the NRL, our CEO and chair.
Fitz: How do you get on with NRL chair Peter V’landys?
MC: I have a lot of respect for Peter. I love the way he has invigorated the sport. I admire how he thinks differently. And I think he feels I’m similar-minded and it will suit the role here in PNG. For a time there we weren’t talking, but my editor made me mend that fence. We can both be pretty stubborn.
Fitz: You’ve been doing your job in holding him to account. Is it possible there was a bonus in it for him to get you this gig, so the pressure on him eases?
MC: I’ve been passionate about doing something like this for a while now, and I think he saw that passion, and I’m grateful for the opportunity that he and [NRL chief executive] Andrew Abdo have given me. But if that’s the case, this is a pretty exorbitant way of silencing someone, by giving them a job.
Fitz: Now, let’s just say that two years from now, one of your players commits an atrocity on the Gold Coast, just after the match against the Titans. Let’s say you hear that I’m about to go on a rant that might scare the horses and the sponsors? Can I expect a call from you beginning, “Maaaaaaate …” ?
MC: I can tell you one thing. I won’t waste your time trying to get from you where the leak came from.
Fitz: So your instinct will be to say, “Yes, it was him. He broke the window. We’re sorry”?
MC: I would expect to have the same policy I’ve had with journalism: honesty.
Fitz: OK, last thing. I’ve looked this up, and want to say to you: “Gutpela lak, mate, tasol mi tingting yu bai gat hatwokok tru long yu.” What did I just say?
MC: “Good luck, mate, because you’ll need it”, or something like that?
Fitz: All right, now I am impressed.
MC: The app has helped!
@Twitter @Peter_Fitz
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Peter FitzSimons is a journalist and columnist with The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via X.From our partners
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