There has been a major power play going on at South Sydney over the course of the summer to the point where co-owner Russell Crowe has stepped in to save the position of general manager of football Shane Richardson.

Fox Sports has learned a board meeting towards the back end of last year discussed Richardson parting ways with the club before Hollywood superstar Crowe intervened to stipulate Richardson was going nowhere.

Like him or loathe him, Richardson has been part of the furniture at the Rabbitohs dating back to when the club was almost forced to close its doors prior to Crowe taking control in 2006.

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Round 19

There are questions being asked about whether everyone in the Bunnies front office is on the same page. Source: AAP

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The long-standing official had a brief 12-month stint at NRL headquarters in 2015 where he was the head of strategy and game development before returning to South Sydney in 2016.

There can be no questioning Richardson played a major role in South Sydney winning the club’s 21st premiership in 2014, when he was the Bunnies CEO.

From helping to assemble the premiership-winning roster to getting the front office in order and turning the Bunnies into an NRL flagship, Richardson’s credentials speak for themselves.

Which explains why Crowe felt so strongly about defending his position at South Sydney.

Irrespective, there is friction at Redfern as a number of influential figures butt heads.

There have been suggestions Richardson and coach Wayne Bennett were not seeing eye-to-eye but both have strongly refuted this.

There are also questions being asked about whether everyone in the Bunnies front office is on the same page.

Richardson still has two years left to run on his contract. Source: News Limited

There’s a theory the Bunnies are top-heavy in terms of football club staff.

Richardson still has two years to run on his current contract at Redfern and played a major role in getting Jai Arrow to the club for next season.

When he returned to the club in 2016, Richardson told Crowe he would remain in his general manager role until the end of 2021.

As the general manager of football, he’s responsible for overseeing and assembling the Rabbitohs NRL roster and everything else football-related underneath.

Richardson answers only to the South Sydney board.

Richardson has always been a strong personality who has never been backward about coming forward.

During the negotiations to get Latrell Mitchell to the club there were issues between agent Matt Rose and Richardson.

That’s nothing unusual when it comes to contract negotiations in rugby league but there can be no question it has created tension at Redfern.