David Gallop described western Sydney as a "battleground" as the NRL chief executive answered criticism stemming from the AFL's push into the area.
AFL chief Andrew Demetriou made a high-profile visit to Blacktown on Wednesday to discuss how the new western Sydney team which makes its debut in 2012 will use Blacktown as its training base.
Blacktown mayor Leo Kelly made headlines by accusing the NRL of "sitting on their hands".
But Gallop fired back that Kelly "confuses things".
Gallop said rugby league had been popular and prominent in western Sydney for generations and the NRL was spreading its investment evenly across the area.
"The mayor confuses things to some extent," Gallop said.
"We're in a very different position in western Sydney than the AFL. We have got 20,000 kids playing rugby league across all of western Sydney.
"We have decided to put an academy in western Sydney but we are going to have it at Penrith, not at Blacktown.
"Contrast that to the AFL. They are coming into new territory. They have got to do some things to kickstart what they want to do in western Sydney.
"We are trying to spend our money across the whole area in an even way.
"Our game has been in western Sydney for generations. I think the mayor perhaps needs to recognise that we are part of the fabric of the community out there.
"But we aren't in a position to inject millions of dollars into one place in western Sydney.
"It's a battleground if you like and the battle is for the hearts and minds of seven-year-old kids and their parents.
"That's ultimately what we're all about.
"If we can get our share of seven-year-olds playing our game, we rely very much on grassroots volunteers and there are thousands of them out in western Sydney.
"That's the sort of loyalty that money doesn't buy you overnight."
Gallop bumped into Demetriou at an Olympic function in Sydney on Saturday night.
"We talked about a range of things, obviously western Sydney and the Gold Coast (to join the AFL in 2011)," Gallop said.
Gallop said the NRL's latest move into the Gold Coast market with the Titans, who made their debut last year, has been "incredibly successful for us".
"The local people got in there. The facility is magnificent," he said.
"I'm obviously watching with interest how the AFL tackle coming into the Gold Coast and western Sydney.
"He knows they've got big challenges. How they deal with the draft, how they get local community support.
"It's not an easy road, these news franchises."
