Alfie Langer Statue gets the go-ahead

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk will today announce that the green light has been given for Allan ‘Alfie’ Langer to become the next Queensland rugby league great to be immortalised at Lang Park with a bronze statue, following a three month public campaign by Queensland-based business loans.com.au.

loans.com.au owner Kim Cannon said his business had made a direct offer to the Queensland Premiers office almost six weeks ago to fully pay for the statue and was still fully committed to paying for it, so that Queensland tax payers would not have to foot the bill.

Mr Cannon, who has been in direct contact with Langer throughout the campaign said that upon hearing of the news Langer was genuinely overcome by it.

“He’s such a humble guy and I don’t think he really ever thought it would ever get off the ground. But when I told him it was going ahead, you could tell he was really touched by it”,” Mr Cannon said.

Mr Cannon said that even though he was surprised that taxpayers would be needlessly slugged with the bill, he did not want the issue of funding the statue to become a political football or to be rolled into the controversy surrounding the Premier’s ‘Captain’s Call’ on the “Terry Mackenroth” stand.

“While we didn’t want to assume anything around the decision, we had submitted a formal proposal to government including a quote from a sculptor so we were hopeful of getting going quickly,” Mr Cannon said.

“This won’t be quite as quick but any step forward is a good thing,” Mr Cannon said.

It is expected that Langer, the QRL and the public will be engaged to get input for the design of the statue.

The 3 month campaign run by the loans.com.au team drew more than 8,000 signatures to a petition at www.alfiestatue.com.au.

As part of the loans.com.au campaign, a bronzed mascot which looks like a huge Alfie Langer Statue has been appearing on the field at Broncos home games to remind fans to sign the petition. Fans have been taking selfies with the striking eight-foot tall Alfie mascot and sharing them on social media.

Mr Cannon said the public support for an Alfie Statue had once again been shown at the Broncos vs Raiders game last weekend, where more than 1000 people had signed the Alfie Statue petition on tablets carried by loans.com.au volunteers.