Rough tackles in Warriors' hardest game

How a simple game of footy became one of the most tortuous sagas in New Zealand sport. PAUL YANDALL on the woes of Tainui and the Warriors.

When Selwyn Pearson turned up at the wrong Takapuna paddock to play rugby union, he was offered a rugby league ball and told simply to run with it.

After the game, the exhausted, gangly, 8-year-old tucked the ball under his arm and shyly asked the coach if he could take it home.

"I didn't know how to play the bloody game. I told him I'd never touched the ball as much in rugby. Now that I had it, I was going to go home and sleep with it under my pillow."

Now aged in his 50s and chairman of the Auckland Rugby League, Mr Pearson is again playing a game he is unfamiliar with. One where the final players have yet to be selected, where the rules have been bent, twisted or ignored, and where the only thing being kicked around is the $8.6 million-in-debt Auckland Warriors rugby league club.

In the High Court at Hamilton last Friday, Justice Grant Hammond went some way to determining who the final players would be.

Tainui owns the Warriors. The judge dismissed an application by Tainui elder Sir Robert Mahuta to stop what he called the "fire sale"of the club to the New Zealand Rugby League by members of the tribe's ruling executive, Tekaumarua. Sir Robert claimed the executives who authorised the sale lacked the authority.

Two factions within Tainui, one led by Sir Robert and the other by the acting chairman of Tekaumarua, Kingi Porima, have been separately negotiating the sale of the Warriors with two different buyers - a consortium of Auckland businessmen called the Yes Group Ltd and the NZRL.

"I can't see the ball for the players now. We've got two liquidators, two buyers, two sellers, and a club that's about to go belly up," said Mr Pearson before Friday's judgment.

The problem had been one of selection for the Warriors, he said. "You've got the wrong type of people trying to get into this game. They've got champagne tastes, but only beer money."

Eleven days ago, Mr Pearson made a bold selection move himself, one designed to shake out the "champagne-swillers" and "tyre-kickers" hovering around the club.

In a move that astonished everyone, he dobbed the Warriors in to the taxman.

Tipping off the Inland Revenue Department that a deal to sell the Warriors was about to be signed, and that the new owners could liquidate the club, meant that the IRD demanded unpaid taxes of nearly $500,000 by the end of this month.

The club has $100 in the bank and, under default clauses in its Sale and Purchase Agreement, if it fails to pay its debts it can be reclaimed by its previous owner - Auckland Rugby League.

"We can claim it back for the people," said Mr Pearson.

"I'm not letting anyone tip it over and I'm not going to let those 6-year-olds running around with [Warriors] jerseys on their backs see their dream vanish - I'd rather die."

TAINUI

The tribe consists of 61 marae comprising 43,000 beneficiaries and is being torn apart by a clash between new democratic forces and the revered, 142-year-old Kingitanga movement, embodied by the Maori Queen, Dame Te Atairangikaahu.

The internal bickering has paralysed the tribe as it tries desperately to rationalise its assets and repair the damage of five years' financial mismanagement and a $24 million debt.

One of those assets up for sale is the Warriors, into which Tainui has poured $6.27 million.

Last week's court rulings enable the 12-member Tekaumarua, which after five resignations now consists of only six elected members plus Sir Robert, to continue with a salvage package aimed at reducing Tainui's debt to $100,000 by the end of October.

Sir Robert, the tribe's principal negotiator and adopted brother of Dame Te Ata, is the Maori Queen's appointee on the executive and has contested nearly every decision it has made since it terminated his directorships in June.

The conflict has been played out as a clash between the old and new power structures in the tribe, but there is little doubt that the catalyst has been Tainui's parlous finances.

Five years after the tribe's landmark $170 million settlement with the Crown over land confiscations, its $245 million asset base has been eroded by 16 per cent and it wrote down its balance sheet by $40 million in February.

Tekaumarua has sought to cut its ties with the Warriors and settled for the NZRL's offer of $400,000 plus some of the club's debts. Tainui's $6.27 million investment will be written off.

Sir Robert tried to stop the sale, believing Tainui still had a role to play in the club. He hoped to negotiate a minority shareholding with the Yes Group as the major investor.

After last week's court decisions, that hope now seems dashed.

NZ RUGBY LEAGUE



The NZRL has about $4 million in cash reserves and is a reluctant, potential buyer of the Warriors - and probably the club's best hope of survival.

An agreement to buy the club was negotiated 11 days ago by the NZRL and Tekaumarua executives.

"We're the guardians of the game in New Zealand," said NZRL chairman Gerald Ryan. "If we don't step up who will? If the club folds, we're out [of the Australian-based NRL competition]. That's it, we won't be invited back."

Mr Ryan said the NZRL would prefer a minority shareholding that gave it control of the club's sporting management and would seek a business partner to look after finance.

The NZRL has been hovering around the negotiating table since Tainui's financial problems became evident in February. It played its first hand in July with an attempt to forge a partnership with other interested buyer the Yes Group.

That attempt ended amicably when a partnership arrangement could not be reached.

Auckland businessman Eric Watson has been mentioned as the NZRL's partner in its present buyout attempt, but neither he nor Mr Ryan has confirmed that a partnership exists.

The unexpected arrival of a tax bill of nearly $500,000 prompted the NZRL to reconsider its offer for the Warriors, but Mr Ryan wants the purchase to proceed "for the good of the game in New Zealand."

AUCKLAND RUGBY LEAGUE



By tipping off the IRD to the club's unpaid tax bills, Mr Pearson played the sharpest card the ARL had.

If the Warriors fail to pay the bill, or Tainui's infighting drags on, preventing a timely sale, the ARL will be perfectly placed to reclaim the club.

The catch is that the Warriors may be worthless by then, particularly if the Australian-based National Rugby League decides to expel it from the contest.

The ARL, and its 35 affiliated clubs, brought the Auckland Warriors to life in 1995.

It sold the club to Tainui and Malcolm Boyle and Graham Lowe in 1998 for $3.5 million, plus an annual levy of $250,000 to go towards developing the sport. Of the $3.5 million, $1.5 million is yet to be paid and is due in three $500,000 instalments on December 1, 2001, 2002, and 2003.

Fearful that any new owner might call in the receivers and deny it any chance of receiving its dues, the ARL has desperately manoeuvred itself into the strongest position possible.

Keen to play a management role in a revived Warriors, it is believed to favour the Yes Group's proposal because an NZRL buyout would shut the ARL out.

"As long as we get our payments, we'll be happy," said Mr Pearson yesterday. "That's the thing we're really worried about."

NATIONAL RUGBY LEAGUE



Like a big brother growing steadily weary with the younger siblings' squabbles, the NRL is waiting and watching. But not for long.

If Tainui cannot sort out its internal wrangles and the Warriors sale continues to languish, the NRL will revoke the club's competition licence.

NRL chief executive David Moffett said last week that if Friday's court hearing did not have a positive outcome, the club would be shown the red card.

The Warriors collect $186,000 a month from the NRL as their share of television rights. In return, they have performed poorly on and off the field, finishing second-to-last in the 14-team competition and failing to draw crowds here and in Australia.

At home, 21,000 attended the Warriors' season-opening win over Melbourne, but that number fell to 5000 by round 18 of the 26-round competition. Alarmingly, the club failed to attract its break-even home attendance figure of 12,000 at nine of its 13 matches at Ericsson Stadium.

Mr Moffett has said the NRL appreciates that "very complex and difficult issues" surround the Warriors, and next year's 14-team draw still includes the club.

But the NRL has a sport to promote. Will it kick the Warriors into touch?

THE YES GROUP



A consortium of Auckland entrepreneurs and self-confessed sports lovers Gary McNabb, Mike Ridgeway and Tim Manning is still working discreetly behind the scenes to buy the Warriors.

The consortium is only interested in buying into the team if it has at least 75 per cent control. It is believed to be Sir Robert's, and the ARL's, preferred buyer because it would allow both groups an interest in the club.

Spokesman Paul McCormick said the group had business expertise in the computer, technology and property industries, but was best known for its Viaduct Basin water-taxis.

"We're basically talking about a group of people who love sport in New Zealand and just want to give something back."

He said an attempt in July to forge a partnership with the NZRL failed when the two groups could not agree on who would control the club.

Mr McCormick said the group recognised its lack of sports management expertise and was keen to acquire a minority partner that had such experience.

But the group has been dismissed as a partner by Tekaumarua executive Hemi Rau.

"They want us to front up with the bulk of the money, and somehow we'll get it all back later. That's how simplistic it is. We can't afford it any more."

Rumours persist that a contra land deal between Sir Robert and the Yes Group's property interests is also being negotiated in connection with the Warriors sale, but Tainui has consistently denied this.

MALCOLM BOYLE

AND GRAHAM LOWE



The pair bought their one-third shareholding of Rugby League People Ltd, the holding company set up to hold stocks in the Warriors club, for $100,000 in 1998 with Tainui buying the other two-thirds.

The pair played management roles at the club until they were sacked from the Warriors board in March.

The shares in the Warriors are effectively worthless and, although both men expressed an interest in negotiating a management role at the club under the Yes Group, they look likely to kiss their involvement in the club goodbye.