Stadium wars: What Canberra can learn from Peter V'Landys venue explosion with Dominic Perrottet

Instead, the city is on the sidelines as a stadium war erupts in Sydney, with V'Landys intent on taking down NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet for reneging on $250 million worth of upgrades to suburban grounds.

"One thing you'll learn from me, I don't bluff," V'Landys fumed on Wednesday when he threatened to take the NRL grand final away from NSW.

The stand off is quite remarkable given the NSW government is set to open a new $800 million rectangular stadium at Moore Park in the coming weeks.

Sydney fans will be treated to a world-class sporting experience. Seats close to the action, protected from the elements, new amenities and a reinvigorated game-day experience.

The money V'Landys is blowing up about was supposed to be spent on smaller venues - Brookvale, Leichhardt and Cronulla.

But all the huffing and puffing has hardly swayed stadium doubters that hundreds of millions upon hundreds of millions need to be spent for a football game.

It makes you wonder if the bluster would be beneficial in Canberra, or delay even further an already delayed idea. Andrew Barr v Peter V'Landys - I'd pay to see that.

There is, however, a simple lesson for Barr and the ACT government out of all this: stadiums are becoming harder to build and more expensive every time they are pushed back.

Barr and his government only needs to look up the highway to see the turf war between V'Landys and Perrottet, or across the Bass Strait to see the AFL and Tasmanian government standoff about the state's stadium proposal.

Closer to home, they need only look at the ACT budget papers for that lesson to smack them in the face.

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The proposed "Home of Football" at Thorsby was first funded in 2019 and slated to be finished two months ago.

Three years later construction is yet to begin, with another delay pushing the completion date back to mid 2024 - two years later than proposed - and fears the $24.5 million project is set to blow out to $48 million.

That's small change when it comes stadium talk, where the pricetag of a new venue in Canberra will hit at least $500 million should it ever be built.

So for now, the brave Canberra Raiders souls - all 18,000 or so of them expected to turn up this weekend for a blockbuster - will sit in the cold and wet at a venue where roughly 10-15 per cent of seats are protected from the winter blast.

Many have tried to strong arm Barr and his government over the years. The NRL, Rugby Australia and Football Australia have all called for a new stadium in Canberra thinking it would help fast-track the project.

The ACT has rebuffed all attempts, even withdrawing from the rugby World Cup bid last year citing the cost of being a host city. Bid leader Phil Kearns' comments about Canberra needing a new stadium just to be considered didn't help the issue, either.

Some within the Canberra sporting community remain optimistic, believing a deal is close to being done even though Barr's preference appears to have shifted from Civic to a two-stage rebuild of the AIS Arena and Canberra Stadium at Bruce.

So far Labor taking the Federal government reins has done little to stoke the fire, even though it was considered one of the key elements to giving the project the green light.

The V'Landys-Perrottet biff in NSW certainly hasn't helped Canberra's cause for a new venue. At some point, though, there might be need for someone like V'Landys to redirect his blowtorch to the capital.

For now he is firmly focused on Perrottet.

"One of the disappointing aspects is we've trusted them for the last three months and we kept getting told, 'there is this happening and that happening. Can you wait for the announcement to happen at a different period?' Now it's given us limited opportunity given we're weeks away from the grand final," V'Landys said.

"The main option for us is they've got a legally binding agreement and for them to honour that legally binding agreement. You can't choose and cherry-pick when you honour an agreement. If you've got an agreement, you should honour it. Full stop."

The NSW government has tipped billions into NRL teams and venues in Sydney in recent years. All we want in Canberra is a seat protected from the rain.

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