David Gallop

David Gallop is an Australian sports administrator, lawyer and the chief executive of the Football Federation Australia. He previously served as the Chief Executive Officer of the National Rugby League between February 2002 and June 2012. He was also the Secretary of the Rugby League International Federation from its inception in 1998 up until his resignation on 5 June 2012.

Gallop was born in Canberra and lived there until the age of 14 while his father worked as a lawyer. He spent a short time in Darwin before returning to Canberra in the suburb of Narrabundah. Gallop played cricket at Canberra Grammar; however his father converted him to become a Canberra Raiders supporter. He started a sports administration course at Canberra College of Advanced Education but bowed out after just a week for arts at the Australian National University. He then moved to Sydney in 1984 to study law at the University of Sydney, graduating in 1988. In 1989 he travelled to England to play cricket in the Kent League. In 1990 he married Kathy and they had two children, Tom and Anna.

Football administration

Rugby league

During the summer of 1994–95, Gallop was working as an associate with the Sydney law firm Holman Webb, and playing cricket on weekends with a University of NSW side. A UNSW team-mate had set up a meeting with John Ribot, who had come up with the Super League idea, and Gallop first became involved in Rugby League as Legal Affairs Manager for Super League in 1995.

Having previously acted as the NRL’s Director of Legal and Business Affairs, Gallop was closely involved in all key decisions involving the game since the NRL’s inception in late 1997. He was voted the New South Wales Sports Administrator of the Year in 2002. In 2006 he was voted the Australian Sports Administrator of the year at the Confederation of Australian Sport Awards.

In 2008, he was appointed to the Board of the Australian Sports Commission. In 2010 he was named acting Chairman of the Australian Sports Commission.

In April 2010, in the greatest sporting scandal in NRL history, he announced the stripping of two premierships and three minor premierships from the Melbourne Storm team. He further announced they would play out the remainder of the 2010 season for no points. Gallop was widely criticised by many for these heavy penalties with much of the criticism directed at the apparent conflict of interest. Gallop's employer - News Limited - was also the owner of the Melbourne Storm. Gallop was also close friends with John Hartigan - the then Chairman of News Limited Australia. Hartigan identified Storm's ex-CEO Brian Waldron as the 'chief rat'. All penalties were handed down despite Gallop not seeking board approval prior to doing so, and were handed down before any investigation was conducted. In order to diffuse some of this criticism, the NRL Board finally came out a month later and backed Gallop's stance. This was the second major salary cap scandal under Gallop's leadership. In 2002, the then table-topping Canterbury Bulldogs were stripped of all competition points and finished wooden spooners after being found cheating the salary cap. However, just two years later they won the premiership with largely the same playing roster. Gallop also had to deal with the mid-season defection of Bulldogs star Sonny Bill Williams to French rugby union.

In 2011 he again fell into hot water in his first visit to Melbourne after the Storm salary cap scandal of 2010, when he likened Melbourne Storm fans to terrorists after they booed him during the presentation of the 2011 Minor Premiership. This coming after the Storm were presented the minor premiership on 11 September, exactly the tenth anniversary of the September 11 attacks in America. He was forced later to clarify his comments which did little to ease the already fractured relations between the NRL and the Melbourne Storm fans.

In February 2012, co-inciding with the formation of the new NRL independent commission and the exit of News Limited from its control of the game, Gallop's contract as CEO was formally extended a further four years. His contract extension was a condition placed by News Limited with the ARL. 2012 was Gallop's 10th year in charge of Rugby League in Australia; however, on Tuesday, 5 June 2012 Gallop's reign as NRL CEO came to an end when the new Independent Commission announced his immediate departure. This was mostly due to the fact that the ARL wanted to go 'in a different direction'.

Football (soccer)

On 21 August 2012, David Gallop was announced as the new chief executive of the Football Federation Australia. His position as CEO has recently come under a lot of scrutiny in the 2015-16 A-League, where he has been criticised by commentators and fans alike for his handling into the leaked documents of banned football fans. On December 1, 2015 he held a press conference in which he ignored the issues that Australian football fans were facing in regards to the implementation of an appeal process for banned football fans. This has led to fans boycotting A-League matches whilst also starting the hashtag #Gallopout.