A player drain crisis in rugby league is at the heart of the ARL Commission chairman John Grant's bitter dispute with NRL clubs.
Grant is confident the 16 chairmen calling for his head following his U-turn on his promise of an extra $100 million to the clubs from 2018 will come to realise the need to invest more in grassroots rugby league is imperative.
"For a number of years, at least since 2013, we've had clubs with declining male participation rates," Grant said on Friday.
"So that's what feeds our elite competition.
"Why is that? There's competitive forces in the market, not only from sporting competitors but also just what teenagers are doing.
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"We need to run better competitions, we need to invest within the states. There's lots of stuff we need to do.
"Talk to the state chairs, they'll give you an indication of what we need to do."
Grant's fears about falling participation rates come a day after NRL chief Todd Greenberg also expressed his deep concerns about the declining numbers of rugby league players in Australia.
"I made it clear on day one in this job that I had two priorities: I want to see more people playing the game and I want to see more people watching the game and growing the base of our participation is important," Greenberg said.
"We're seeing some declining trends in the last past few years of the registered participants playing tackle footy.
"We're seeing great growth in the women's game, we're seeing great growth in the recreational game, but we've got some great concerns about where we're heading."
Greenberg said rugby league wasn't the only sport worrying about participation trends.
"So what that means is we've got to think very carefully about our strategy and we've got to think very carefully about where we apply funds, whether it's in regional areas in the bush or whether it's in the city," he said.
"We've got to be very, very careful about what we do next."
