Barry Maranta

Barry Maranta is co-founder of the Australian-based Brisbane Broncos rugby league team. He is also an ex Old Boy of Marist College Rosalie in Brisbane. As well as being a founder of the Brisbane Broncos he is currently a Sky Shades president.

History of owning the Broncos

In 1985 Barry Maranta expressed interest in fielding a Brisbane-based team in the New South Wales Rugby League premiership, the top-level rugby league football competition at the time. He was one of the principal owners of International Sports Management who had contributed to the advent of the Rugby League State of Origin concept. In 1986 Maranta joined Paul Morgan, Gary Balkin and Steve Williams to form the Brisbane club. All men had played for Brisbane domestic teams. Four organisations made bids for the team which would be established in 1987. Ron McAuliffe, had the support of the NSWRL over the Maranta-Morgan group, other groups included 'International Syndicate' lead by John Sattler and Bob Hagan, and one by Darryl van der Velde (who would later be CEO of the South Queensland Crushers).

When the NSWRL decided not to have a Brisbane club in 1987, the groups went down, but in a final bid for the 1988 season, Both McAuliffe and Maranta-Morgan bid for the club. The NSWRL finally decided to have a Brisbane-based team and thus the Brisbane Broncos were born. The rights originally were going to go to the McAuliffe based group, but when it was realised they didn't have the funds to support the club, it was given to Maranta-Morgan.

However the Maranta-Morgan group did not please everybody, especially Australian Rugby League chairman Ken Arthurson, who decided to add other (now defunct) Queensland-based teams, Gold Coast in 1988 and South Queensland in 1995.

Maranta was instrumental in the takeover of the ailing London Crusaders club in the English capital. London, who were founded as an offshoot of Fulham Football Club inside nine weeks and played their first competitive fixture in late August 1980, had a patchy existence until the company that owned the club went into receivership in the early spring of 1994.

The club, the only British professional rugby league club outside of the code's northern heartlands at the time, was run by the Rugby Football League whilst a new owner could be found. Maranta and his Brisbane colleagues saw London as a way into another top flight competition although London were playing in the second tier of British RL at the time.

Brisbane completed their takeover of London Crusaders in April 1994 and the renamed London Broncos began life in the August of that year. The interest of Maranta's fellow board members was to prove short-lived however, and after London had been placed in the embryonic European Super League (which was launched fully in the summer of 1996), his colleagues withdrew their interest. Maranta and fellow director John Ribot remained but Virgin Group founder Richard Branson took an initial stake in the club and later increased his holding to outright ownership after Maranta sold his interest in 1998.

Maranta returned to Australia. London Broncos made their only Challenge Cup final appearance so far at the old Wembley Stadium in May 1999, Branson relinquished his interest in 2001 and the London Broncos brand was 'retired' in September 2005, becoming Harlequins Rugby League under the ownership of Ian Lenagan.

ources

* [http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/bbing/stories/s10775.htm ABC Radio]
* [http://brisbaneshs.eq.edu.au/home/rugby1/pages/features/players.htm A history of State High Rugby]