In a bombshell development, Abdo announced his resignation as NRL chief executive on Monday and will replace long-serving TA supremo Craig Tiley, who is taking up the same role with the US Tennis Association.
Tiley has been far and away Australia's highest-paid sporting administrator, earning several million dollars a year and even V'landys said he couldn't stand in Abdo's way.
"It's a position that any sporting administrator would aspire to," the Australian Rugby League Commission chair told reporters in Sydney.
"It's an international competition. He gets to travel to Wimbledon, New York, Paris. I mean, I can offer him Manly and Papua New Guinea.
"So any sporting administrator would not give up a position that is offered to him like Tennis Australia because it's the ultimate in a sporting administrator's career."
After taking over during COVID-19 and working with V'landys to ensure the so-called "greatest game of all" played on during the pandemic, Abdo has been lauded as one of the code's finest-ever CEOs.
Under his leadership, the NRL has executed its daring plan to open the season with matches in Las Vegas, a deal that runs out after 2028.
The league has introduced major changes to its rule book on Abdo's watch, most notably the divisive set-restart rule.
Abdo was also chief executive when the NRL expanded for the first time since 2007 by introducing the Dolphins in 2023.
Now the South African will be tasked with running the biggest sporting event on the Australian calendar.
While administrators including Todd Greenberg, David Gallop and John O'Neill have made successful switches from one major Australian sport to another, Abdo's move to tennis shapes as a particularly bold one.
After starting at TA as the player development chief in 2005, Tiley has transformed the Australian Open into a billion-dollar behemoth.
He became the Australian Open tournament director in 2006 and CEO in 2013.
V'landys is adamant TA have landed on the right candidate after conducting a global search for a successor to Tiley, who announced his plan to step down back in February. Â
"Andrew has kept me abreast of his situation with Tennis Australia from day one," V'landys said.
"It was ironic because when the current (TA) CEO resigned, I said to Andrew, 'Be prepared, you're going to get a phone call from Tennis Australia because if they want the best CEO in Australia, that's you'.
"And sure enough they did contact him and and Andrew then made me aware that, as usual, I was right."
It is expected that Abdo will fill the dual role of TA chief executive and Australian Open tournament director, despite the governing body at times coming under fire for giving Tiley too much responsibility.
The South African-born 63-year-old Tiley always dismissed as a fallacy the notion that he had two different jobs.
"That's very much a misunderstanding," Tiley told AAP in February, adding that having the CEO running the company and its biggest event was completely logical.
"The CEO is the face of the organisation and is responsible for the conversation with the externals, whether it be the members, boards or the public or the media.
"It would be like having a head coach of a team and then having someone in the back office talking to the media about how the team's playing. It just doesn't make any sense."
