Footy legend slams the NRL’s grand final entertainment choice: ‘Our fans deserve better’

Footy legend Wendell Sailor has slammed the NRL’s Grand Final entertainment choice, declaring the code’s fans ‘deserve better.’

Sailor, who also represented the Wallabies in his decorated sporting career, felt the NRL had ‘dropped the ball’ by not securing a headline act ahead of the decider at Sydney’s Accor Stadium on October 1.

‘I’m disappointed to be honest… look I love Tina Turner, I met her a couple of times, but I think we as the NRL should do better, our fans deserve better,’ Sailor told listeners on Triple M.

‘We could get someone from around the world. The AFL has got KISS and we got a take-off of Tina Turner.

‘They need a headline act, they needed to go all in, they dropped the ball again.’

It follows the NRL announcing they will go retro in 2023, with a musical tribute to Tina Turner to headline the pre-game entertainment (Turner, is pictured in the lead up to the 1993 Grand Final at the SFS)

Ruva Ngwenya won plenty of admirers as Tina Turner in the Tina Turner Musical

Sailor’s sentiment was shared by many league fans, who flooded the comments section of the NRL’s official grand final entertainment announcement post on X (formerly Twitter).

‘I think if this was a secondary act somewhere during the day it would have been a nice & fitting tribute,’ one NRL fan wrote.

‘However having it as the main entertainment seems a bit cheap. I bet it cost 10 per cent of what they normally pay.

‘I love Tina, but this is cheap. I could go down to the the local RSL to watch covers of songs if I needed to. How cheap are they. Embarrassing,’ wrote another.

‘The AFL gets global superstars KISS, meanwhile the NRL gets some woman most people have never heard of, banging out covers of Tina Turner,’ a third fan wrote.

‘Is that really the best you can do NRL? No wonder the AFL runs rings around the NRL.’

Turner rocked rugby league in the 1990s and the greatest game of all will officially go retro in 2023 with a musical tribute to the late superstar.

The NRL felt the passing of Turner in May as much as anyone given the rock icon’s lasting impact on the game through arguably one of the greatest marketing campaigns in Australian sport, rugby league’s ‘Simply the Best’ in 1990.

Cross-code star Wendell Sailor (pictured right) relayed his thoughts on the NRL’s Grand Final entertainment on Triple M

Turner died in May at the age of 83 after a long illness and on grand final day the cast of Tina – The Tina Turner Musical will belt out some of her greatest hits.

‘Thirty years on, Tina Turner’s 1993 performance remains one of the great Grand Final moments,’ NRL CEO Andrew Abdo said.

‘This collaboration is a perfect way for Rugby League to pay tribute to Tina and everything she did for our game.’

The musical features iconic songs including ‘Simply The Best’, ‘Nutbush’ and ‘Proud Mary’ which will be blasted out on October 1 this year.