New Zealand Rugby is seeking urgent meetings and admitted it may be forced to reconsider a multi-million-dollar sponsorship agreement after being embroiled at the epicentre of the corruption scandal enveloping World Rugby.
In August last year, New Zealand Rugby confirmed a six-year partnership with Altrad that has since seen theconstruction company’s name emblazoned across the front of the All Blacks, Black Ferns, national sevens teams and under-20s jerseys.
As sentencing in the French trial for bribery and corruption allegations concluded on Wednesday (NZT) Mohed Altrad, founder and president of Altrad, received an 18-month suspended prison sentence, an $82,000 (NZD) fine and a suspended ban on operating within business. He was found guilty of active corruption, influence peddling and misuse of corporate assets.
At the time of striking the long-term sponsorship agreement with New Zealand Rugby, Altrad said: “Rugby upholds the values that I have always defended in my life. New Zealand Rugby is the embodiment of these values on and off the pitch.”
The Altrad logo now threatens to stain NZ Rugby’s national teams.
Asked by the Herald whether it will walk away from the Altrad deal that, alongside UK-based petrochemical company Ineos elevates kit sponsorship beyond $50 million a year, NZ Rugby confirmed that was under consideration.
“We will be reconvening with representatives from the company immediately – as well as with our key stakeholders – so that we may consider our options to resolve the best path forward,” NZ Rugby said in a statement to the Herald on Wednesday.
“We have been in discussions on the possibility of this outcome for some time.”
Altrad’s charges relate to a relationship of corruption with World Rugby vice-chairman and French rugby president Bernard Laporte.
Mohed Altrad. Photo / Getty
That extended to Laporte’s vote in favour of Altrad’s failed bid to buy English Premiership club Gloucester; the France 2023 partnership contract and the postponement of a domestic Montpellier game.
The high-powered duo were also found to be in cahoots when it came to Altrad’s company becoming the France national team’s first front-of-shirt sponsor worth $2.8m.
Laporte was found guilty of illegal taking of interests; influence peddling, passive corruption and concealment of abuse of social goods. He received a two-year suspended sentence, a $123,000 (NZD) fine and a two-year ban on rugby-related activity but signalled his intention to appeal against the latter sentence.
The string of charges plunged World Rugby into crisis nine months out from the World Cup in France, with the governing body convening an emergency meeting to plan a response.
World Rugby must now act swiftly to determine whether Laporte, the second in charge to chairman Bill Beaumont, continues to cast a dark corruption cloud over next year’s global pinnacle event.
The charges against Laporte and Altrad follow Claude Atcher’s sacking as chief executive of France 2023 in October for overseeing an alleged “climate of terror” at the tournament’s organising committee. Atcher was also fined $8,000 as part of the trial.
Such a crisis brings into sharp focus World Rugby’s shambolic decision to host the World Cup in France next year – after originally recommending South Africa.
Four years ago, the World Rugby board, following detailed consideration of the comprehensive host candidate report, unanimously recommended South Africa as the 2023 World Cup host nation.
What seemed a formality turned out to be anything but when, two weeks later, World Rugby made a stunning backflip as its council voted against the independent evaluation to award France the tournament – after extensive backroom lobbying – via secret ballot.
Pressed on that decision at the time World Rugby chairman Beaumont said: “A humiliation for me? I don’t think so. I don’t think that at all. There’s always got to be one recommendation in the evaluation process and that was South Africa.”
Corruption from the upper echelons of World Rugby’s ruling powers is another governance stain after convicted killer, former Fiji Rugby Union chairman Francis Kean, served on the global council before being forced to withdraw his nomination - seconded by the French federation - for the influential executive committee in July, 2020.
