Gregor Paul: The epic fail that could come back to bite New Zealand Rugby

OPINION:

There was a report over the weekend that showed sports bodies in New Zealand are making progress in gender diversifying their respective boards of governance.

But not rugby. It's still heavily male dominated around the board table be it at national or provincial level.

New Zealand Rugby has two female members on its nine-person board and just 16 per cent female representation on seats of governance across provincial rugby.

This is an epic fail on multiple levels. Culturally, it gives the impression rugby is a sport stuck in an archaic world of secret boy's clubs. The kind that would believe any women present at board meetings should be taking notes and making the tea.

Practically, it endangers future funding, as in 2018, under its Women and Girls in Sport and Active Recreation Strategy, the government introduced a 40 per cent female representation on boards quota for sports that receive more than $50,000 a year in public funding.

That funding is at risk if the quota isn't met by December and yet despite the damage this lack of diversification is causing the game's image and possibly balance sheet, there remains no sense of urgency to change.

It appears there is no plan, no timeline, no directives as to how NZR plans to instigate the changes it needs to fall into line.

Chair of the board Stewart Mitchell has in the last few days offered the usual mild rebuke of his board's failure on this front, saying they are not where they want to be right now, but that they take the issue seriously and are excited about where they are going to get to at a yet to be specified time.

For too long, though, NZR has been talking about governance diversification but not implementing it.

A New Zealand Rugby Football Union board meeting from the past (year unknown). Photo / Photosport

There's always a friendly apologist willing to describe the figures as progress: someone ready to point out that five years ago there were no females on the NZR board and now there are two.

There's always someone – male - within the system to explain why diversification is not an easy path for rugby to follow and suggest there are barriers such as outdated application processes and nonsensical constitutional structures to overcome.

But 58 of 64 sports have managed to meet the 40 per cent female governance quota in the last three years and that provides reason to call NZR out on their procrastination and excuse-offering.

This vague narrative of things being harder than they seem fails to explain why NZR spurned the opportunity to appoint at least one female board director in April.

Appointed director Richard Dellabarca had completed his second, three-year term and his seat became available.

This was a penalty shot in front of the posts for NZR. The appointed positions, of which there are three, are the ones over which the board has some influence.

There is an arms-length, Audit and Remuneration Committee that vets and ultimately recommends appointment candidates, but there is nothing stopping the board from shoulder-tapping female candidates and encouraging them to apply.

The process is not strictly independent as everyone knows. It runs on a nudge-nudge, wink-wink basis and if the board had been committed to a gender diversification plan, it's hard to believe they would have replaced Dellabarca with Mark Hutton.

But this wasn't the only penalty opportunity NZR booted wide of the goal.

NZ Rugby chairman Stewart Mitchell. Photo / Photosport

Brent Impey's time as chair came to an end in April, but in a quirk of circumstance, he still had another year to run on his board tenure.

He revealed to the Herald that he had decided to stay on for the final year to mentor whoever was appointed chair in his place.

As it turns out, that was Mitchell and now a board that says it's committed to best practice and diversity, has a 70-year-plus, white male former chair mentoring a 70-year-plus white, male incumbent chair.

Impey may see his role as a selfless act of duty, but the more noble path for the man who declared himself the champion of women and Pasifika throughout his tenure as chair, would be to vacate his seat and encourage his fellow board members to fill it with someone who represents one or even both of the groups for whom he so fiercely campaigned.

For too long, rugby has been full of big promises and great intentions, but no specifics on how to instigate change to ensure their governance better reflects a playing base, more than half of which is made up of women and Pasifika.

They talk of diversification as if it is some far-off, mystical, promised land which they couldn't possibly be expected to find, but one which they gallantly attempt to reach despite the impossibly difficult challenges.

And for too long, everyone has bought that, content to believe that rugby is a special case, hampered by a constitution that is reflective of its male-dominated history.

It really isn't any different to any other sport, however, and rugby can achieve governance diversity the same as every other sporting body, but only if they give up this idea it will happen organically.