Paul Lewis: Fale harpoons his bid to buy club

Richard Fale, an Hawaiian politician and chief executive of the Tongan/US bid to buy the Auckland-based NZ Warriors NRL rugby league team. Photo / Greg Bowker

Prediction: The Warriors will soon be sold to the Auckland Rugby League.

That conclusion can be drawn from the increasingly shrill and seemingly desperate tactics of Richard Fale and his US-Tongan consortium, bidding against the ARL to buy the Warriors from current owner Eric Watson for a rumoured $24 million or thereabouts.

This week brought the wonderfully ludicrous accusation ARL boss Cameron McGregor was guilty of racism, a contention Fale dropped in front of a disbelieving Auckland league community.

The redoubtable Graham Lowe leapt to McGregor's defence this week and here's what I know: You'd be hard pushed to find a straighter, more honourable bloke than Cameron McGregor. If he's a racist, my bum is a pineapple, Israel Folau is a devil worshipper and the Queen eats corgi sandwiches.

Maybe some folk have forgotten just what the McGregor family have done for league in this country (and therefore for many Polynesian players and families). Father Ron was a Kiwi who became an internationally respected administrator whose custodianship of the game here helped pave the way for professionalism (again, benefiting a great many Polynesians); he scrapped hard against prejudice (league kept out of schools in favour of rugby) and snubs by television sport.

Cameron has followed suit as a player and an administrator, now chairman of the ARL.

Amid all this smoke and mirrors, some clear signals are emerging which suggest the ARL will win the bid.

First, Watson needs money, which is why he is selling up his local business interests, including the Warriors. His High Court battle in London with Sir Owen Glenn — a dispute that leads back to their unhappy time as joint Warriors owners — has gazillions at stake involving a European property venture called Spartan Capital.

Vodafone Warriors v St George Illawarra. Mt Smart Stadium, Auckland, New Zealand. Photo / Photosport

However, the painfully protracted sale negotiations may mean one or both of the bidders may not be able to stump up the necessary — and might be lacing the bid with conditions such as asking Watson to leave capital in the club.

Fale has declared ad nauseam that "money is no object" — so much so that it is not unreasonable to suspect that, actually, money is a problem.

If they were that flush, the sale would surely have been concluded weeks ago. The ARL might not have the exact figure Watson wants either but the noises coming out of the league community suggest they are close to a sale.

So you then begin to suspect that Fale's strange media and public utterances have an ulterior motive. Play the race card and go on the Warriors website forum to stir up the fans — challenging McGregor and Lowe to a ludicrous live streaming debate that no one in their right mind would attend.

Playing the race card against McGregor suggests two things, in my opinion: First, the US-Tonga consortium doesn't understand league and league people here. Second, the lack of judgment makes you wonder whether, even if Fale and company succeeded, they'd get NRL permission to pick up the Warriors' licence and whether sponsors would want to be associated with them.

There's a third thing: Racism takes many forms. Fale's partner George "Mac" Robertson's question on a fan forum ("How much of the terrific Warriors play for the first 5 rounds, followed by the loss in front of Watson as his interest revives, indicate a general excitement by the players that a Polynesian group is seeking to become the owners of the club?") was interesting.

The inference a team largely composed of Polynesians could win only if they knew Polynesian-run owners were imminent is arrogance at best, reverse racism at worst.

I suspect that if they told the team their heroics against the Dragons on Friday night was down to impending Polynesian owner-ship, the players would laugh in their faces. It also suggests that, if the ARL do win out, the Warriors will have dodged a bullet.