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Khoder Nasser: The man behind Sonny Bill Williams' anger
By Paul Kent | May 24, 2008 12:00am
THE quirkiness of King Khoder stepped up a notch this week with his assertion that Sonny Bill Williams could soon be playing for the All Blacks from his intended base which, we are led to believe, might well be France within a month.
After being corrected and told the All Blacks do not select players outside their domestic competition, King Khoder Nasser banged on regardless, insisting that it was a "globalised world", that it was "not like we have closed borders, or any of that bulls . . .".
Here it was - an old tune being played on a different drum.
Already guiding the career of one of the most disliked athletes in Australia, in Anthony Mundine, Nasser has recently taken charge of one of the most popular, Sonny Bill Williams, and within a few short months appears to be already leading him down the same road as Mundine.
One where a man's reputation has suffered in the pursuit of financial gain.
On the evidence available, it means nothing to him that for everybody else, what he is doing with Williams amounts to nothing short of high treason.
A shameful bid to exploit Sonny Bill, a deliberate kick in the guts to rugby league.
All this from a man who can't legally do a deal with the Bulldogs because he is not an accredited player manager.
Sonny has confirmed his dispute is about money, among other things.
What are we supposed to believe? That it was only ever about money?
That Sonny Bill, who came to Sydney as a 16-year-old with barely a dollar in his pocket and is now in the first year of a five-year, $2 million contract - a multi-millionaire at 22 - is simply a body for hire?
He had us all fooled. Or maybe someone has him fooled. Nasser's crusade is simply an extension of the thinking that catapulted Mundine into one of the most polarised athletes in Australia.
Disliked by many, Nasser and Mundine reconcile their dislike by choosing to value the opinions only of the few, but ardent, supporters that surround them.
There is little question their crusade is rarely in the interests of the wider community.
"He looks at the way the system works and he believes the system doesn't necessarily work in the best interests of the athlete," says NRL marketing director and friend, Paul Kind.
"He believes that what he is doing is showing the guts to do things differently and everyone else conforms to the norm.
"It's bit of a personal crusade."
Nasser and Kind often met every few weeks to share a coffee and an idea, but have not spoken since shortly after Nasser took control of Sonny Bill.
Both realised they would inevitably venture into territory they could never agree on.
Nasser is known to sleep on the floors of expensive hotel rooms, forgoing the comfy bed nearby.
He has slept in cars, on the beach, each of them a deliberate attempt to prevent himself from becoming soft and losing his edge.
He has read Alex Haley's The Autobiography Of Malcolm X more times than, on this evidence, he has slept between warm sheets, and like many Muslims draws strength from the message.
He is a university graduate, earning an arts degree majoring in politics. Almost all who know him speak of his intelligence.
From a long line of Australian-born Lebanese Muslims, his father was once president of the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils. But he is still somewhat a loner, with a small and tight circle of friends.
Tony Mundine smacked him in the mouth somewhere in the mix of taking over Anthony's career and Anthony's conversion to Islam, but now they get along well.
His sports hero is not Mundine, as most would have it, but Zinedine Zidane, the former French soccer player who ended his career in the top-flight with a head-butt to the chest of an opponent.
He believes Sonny Bill can have a similar impact. That he is relatively unknown outside NSW and Queensland, and a few spots in New Zealand, speaks of his oversized ambition and crusade to take on The System.
When Nasser first took control of Mundine he often called trainer Johnny Lewis to invite him ringside; Lewis's response being of the two-word variety before hanging up.
"I wanted to think that it wasn't Anthony who was responsible for all those outbursts and that someone else was writing the script," Lewis says. "I saw him as behind it.
"But now, if I had a young Jeff Fenech coming through, he's the only bloke I'd trust him to."
What swayed Lewis was the way Nasser looked after fighters, beyond what he was contractually obliged to. A bonus payment here or there, something else going forward.
But Lewis does not agree with Nasser's direction or handling of Sonny Bill. Like just about everybody outside the Nasser-Mundine inner circle understands, there is a fundamental difference between an individual sport like boxing and a team sport like rugby league.
League's togetherness is its strength. The boxer must establish himself as a stand-alone act.
"He thinks he can take an individual like Anthony and work beyond the system," says Kind.
"But the cycle of sport works in a way that everybody takes benefit from everyone else. If you think you can work that system in a different way you might get outcomes, but there's always a downside. He has always thought that way for Choc (Mundine) and he is starting to think that way with Sonny Bill."
As well as Nasser's crusade against The System, many are blaming his motive for putting a gun to the head of the Bulldogs on a personal dislike of new chief executive Todd Greenburg.
Greenburg was a former executive at ANZ Stadium, and while there he had all but secured the Mundine-Danny Green fight as another showcase event.
All that was left to agree on was a few details, normalities with most stadium hirers. But Nasser wanted the stadium to pay the operating costs, such as lights, security and facilities. This is a cost always met by the hirer, who offsets the cost by keeping revenue from ticket sales.
"He's a very shrewd negotiator," says Greenburg, who declines to reveal details of the meeting for fearing of upsetting Nasser in the lead-up to this week's expected meeting about Sonny Bill.
Greenburg refused to meet the cost, so Nasser threatened to take the fight elsewhere, and Greenburg refused to be held to ransom.
The fight was held across town at the Sydney Football Stadium.
So far, Sonny Bill's only response reveals him as a naive young man.
On the one hand he claims to be a normal bloke who is simply responding to an offer well above his current salary, and who wouldn't?
But in his next breath he says he has not received an offer.
And as everybody else seems to realise, such a negotiation would be fine if Sonny Bill had not committed himself to a five-year contract - a percentage of which will be paid for all five years to his former manager Gavin Orr.
Other than to wish Sonny Bill well, Orr says nothing.
Certainly many believe that another motivation of Nasser's is to break the Bulldogs deal and put Sonny Bill into a new deal, thereby generating himself a percentage of income, but that would be to ignore his fight with The System.
Forty years ago Malcolm X waged a similar crusade, as his biography detailed and as many Muslims around the world adopted as a manifesto.
What gets overlooked is that, before his violent death, Malcolm X was preaching a different message - one of understanding and co-operation. It makes Kind's words ring all the louder.
By Paul Kent | May 24, 2008 12:00am
THE quirkiness of King Khoder stepped up a notch this week with his assertion that Sonny Bill Williams could soon be playing for the All Blacks from his intended base which, we are led to believe, might well be France within a month.
After being corrected and told the All Blacks do not select players outside their domestic competition, King Khoder Nasser banged on regardless, insisting that it was a "globalised world", that it was "not like we have closed borders, or any of that bulls . . .".
Here it was - an old tune being played on a different drum.
Already guiding the career of one of the most disliked athletes in Australia, in Anthony Mundine, Nasser has recently taken charge of one of the most popular, Sonny Bill Williams, and within a few short months appears to be already leading him down the same road as Mundine.
One where a man's reputation has suffered in the pursuit of financial gain.
On the evidence available, it means nothing to him that for everybody else, what he is doing with Williams amounts to nothing short of high treason.
A shameful bid to exploit Sonny Bill, a deliberate kick in the guts to rugby league.
All this from a man who can't legally do a deal with the Bulldogs because he is not an accredited player manager.
Sonny has confirmed his dispute is about money, among other things.
What are we supposed to believe? That it was only ever about money?
That Sonny Bill, who came to Sydney as a 16-year-old with barely a dollar in his pocket and is now in the first year of a five-year, $2 million contract - a multi-millionaire at 22 - is simply a body for hire?
He had us all fooled. Or maybe someone has him fooled. Nasser's crusade is simply an extension of the thinking that catapulted Mundine into one of the most polarised athletes in Australia.
Disliked by many, Nasser and Mundine reconcile their dislike by choosing to value the opinions only of the few, but ardent, supporters that surround them.
There is little question their crusade is rarely in the interests of the wider community.
"He looks at the way the system works and he believes the system doesn't necessarily work in the best interests of the athlete," says NRL marketing director and friend, Paul Kind.
"He believes that what he is doing is showing the guts to do things differently and everyone else conforms to the norm.
"It's bit of a personal crusade."
Nasser and Kind often met every few weeks to share a coffee and an idea, but have not spoken since shortly after Nasser took control of Sonny Bill.
Both realised they would inevitably venture into territory they could never agree on.
Nasser is known to sleep on the floors of expensive hotel rooms, forgoing the comfy bed nearby.
He has slept in cars, on the beach, each of them a deliberate attempt to prevent himself from becoming soft and losing his edge.
He has read Alex Haley's The Autobiography Of Malcolm X more times than, on this evidence, he has slept between warm sheets, and like many Muslims draws strength from the message.
He is a university graduate, earning an arts degree majoring in politics. Almost all who know him speak of his intelligence.
From a long line of Australian-born Lebanese Muslims, his father was once president of the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils. But he is still somewhat a loner, with a small and tight circle of friends.
Tony Mundine smacked him in the mouth somewhere in the mix of taking over Anthony's career and Anthony's conversion to Islam, but now they get along well.
His sports hero is not Mundine, as most would have it, but Zinedine Zidane, the former French soccer player who ended his career in the top-flight with a head-butt to the chest of an opponent.
He believes Sonny Bill can have a similar impact. That he is relatively unknown outside NSW and Queensland, and a few spots in New Zealand, speaks of his oversized ambition and crusade to take on The System.
When Nasser first took control of Mundine he often called trainer Johnny Lewis to invite him ringside; Lewis's response being of the two-word variety before hanging up.
"I wanted to think that it wasn't Anthony who was responsible for all those outbursts and that someone else was writing the script," Lewis says. "I saw him as behind it.
"But now, if I had a young Jeff Fenech coming through, he's the only bloke I'd trust him to."
What swayed Lewis was the way Nasser looked after fighters, beyond what he was contractually obliged to. A bonus payment here or there, something else going forward.
But Lewis does not agree with Nasser's direction or handling of Sonny Bill. Like just about everybody outside the Nasser-Mundine inner circle understands, there is a fundamental difference between an individual sport like boxing and a team sport like rugby league.
League's togetherness is its strength. The boxer must establish himself as a stand-alone act.
"He thinks he can take an individual like Anthony and work beyond the system," says Kind.
"But the cycle of sport works in a way that everybody takes benefit from everyone else. If you think you can work that system in a different way you might get outcomes, but there's always a downside. He has always thought that way for Choc (Mundine) and he is starting to think that way with Sonny Bill."
As well as Nasser's crusade against The System, many are blaming his motive for putting a gun to the head of the Bulldogs on a personal dislike of new chief executive Todd Greenburg.
Greenburg was a former executive at ANZ Stadium, and while there he had all but secured the Mundine-Danny Green fight as another showcase event.
All that was left to agree on was a few details, normalities with most stadium hirers. But Nasser wanted the stadium to pay the operating costs, such as lights, security and facilities. This is a cost always met by the hirer, who offsets the cost by keeping revenue from ticket sales.
"He's a very shrewd negotiator," says Greenburg, who declines to reveal details of the meeting for fearing of upsetting Nasser in the lead-up to this week's expected meeting about Sonny Bill.
Greenburg refused to meet the cost, so Nasser threatened to take the fight elsewhere, and Greenburg refused to be held to ransom.
The fight was held across town at the Sydney Football Stadium.
So far, Sonny Bill's only response reveals him as a naive young man.
On the one hand he claims to be a normal bloke who is simply responding to an offer well above his current salary, and who wouldn't?
But in his next breath he says he has not received an offer.
And as everybody else seems to realise, such a negotiation would be fine if Sonny Bill had not committed himself to a five-year contract - a percentage of which will be paid for all five years to his former manager Gavin Orr.
Other than to wish Sonny Bill well, Orr says nothing.
Certainly many believe that another motivation of Nasser's is to break the Bulldogs deal and put Sonny Bill into a new deal, thereby generating himself a percentage of income, but that would be to ignore his fight with The System.
Forty years ago Malcolm X waged a similar crusade, as his biography detailed and as many Muslims around the world adopted as a manifesto.
What gets overlooked is that, before his violent death, Malcolm X was preaching a different message - one of understanding and co-operation. It makes Kind's words ring all the louder.
