Gregor Paul: Rugby on the brink of monumental change - but key stakeholders left in the dark

A nervous crowd watch the All Blacks take on Ireland at the Rugby World Cup. Photo / Andrew Warner

OPINION

Rugby in this country stands on the brink of yet another monumental change that will impact for generations to come, and once again the real stakeholders of the game – the people who matter the most – are being left in the dark about the specifics.

That New Zealand Rugby (NZR) and the provincial unions are once again negotiating constitutional change in clandestine fashion is of itself all the proof anyone needs to be sure the current governance structure is not fit for purpose.

An independent review – one that carries a high degree of credibility – has recommended NZR blow up its current governance structure and instead appoint nine independent directors.

Such a course of action would leave the provinces without an elected voice at the NZR board table and effectively acknowledge they are no longer the game’s key stakeholders.

A restructuring along the lines that have been proposed by the independent reviewers would also require the current NZR board to give up their seats – although some may be able to re-apply through the new process and keep them – and therefore there is a significant concern that self-protection and self-preservation will get in the way of doing what is right for the greater good of the game.

No one is suggesting that the findings of the review should be adopted in their entirety, but because both NZR and the provinces say they are broadly supportive of the findings and agree that some kind of structural change is necessary, then they should also accept that all correspondence and formal meetings between them should be open to the media and available to the public.

One of the big laments from the provinces is that they say mum and dad volunteers, club coaches, grassroots players and community stalwarts feel disconnected from the decisions that are made by an increasingly corporatised NZR executive and board.

And yet here the provinces now are, with the power to make a decision that will impact the community game for decades, and they don’t want to tell their people what they are championing within the review, what they agree with and what they don’t.

Equally, NZR’s chair Dame Patsy Reddy has told the Herald that she has agreed to not speak publicly about the process until a consensus has been reached about what the constituent members want to happen next.

New Zealand Rugby chief executive Mark Robinson. Photo / photosport.nz

There are talks scheduled for early December and presumably sometime after that, the media and public will be informed where things sit.

But the danger of letting the provinces and NZR operate without scrutiny to bring a “done deal” to the public’s attention has been seen before, and everyone has learned, the hard way, that history-changing decisions require open consultation, absolute transparency and a sense of inclusion rather than exclusion.

To see the unions and NZR once again work with each other in secrecy over the independent governance review is recidivist offending of the most egregious kind, given it was barely two years ago that NZR was made to look ridiculous for trying to sell an equity stake in its commercial assets without having gained the approval of all its relevant stakeholders.

NZR didn’t have the support of the professional players to sell out to US fund manager Silver Lake, largely because the national body didn’t collaborate or communicate with the New Zealand Rugby Players’ Association (NZRPA) the way it should have, and instead presented them – and everyone else – with a finalised deal that it said was the best any sports body had ever been offered.

The unions readily bought this argument, but then the unions were going to share millions in a windfall payment if the deal went through and didn’t appear to drill too deeply into whether NZR had made exhaustive explorations on the viability of other possible ways to raise capital – stock market flotation, co-operative structures or even bank debt.

The fact that NZR and the provinces were so eager to ram home a private equity deal with Silver Lake is ultimately what stopped them from, initially at least, being able to ram home a deal with Silver Lake.

The NZRPA, whose members include many of the very people who have driven the value of the commercial assets to the $3.1b evaluation they were given in 2021, stood its ground, refusing to back a deal on the basis there needed to be greater scrutiny and consultation, as decisions of that magnitude required public transparency.

The value of public transparency and open debate was further proven when NZRPA exposed the so-called deal of the century as being more likely to be a ticket to bankruptcy, and rescoped the agreement to one which carries lower risk and greater possibilities.

What should foster yet greater desire for transparency is that having given the unions $39m to share when the Silver Lake deal was finally approved, NZR chief executive Mark Robinson has subsequently said he doesn’t believe the current provincial competition and set-up is “fit for purpose”.

It begs the question why NZR didn’t write into the deal that the payment would be made post-agreeing a restructured competition, but that’s the problem when there is so little transparency – everything becomes a means to an end.

It’s a forlorn hope, but perhaps NZR and the provinces will consider inviting the media – or even better, live-streaming their meetings about the review – to provide some kind of assurance that they accept that they are merely custodians and not owners of a national asset.

Gregor Paul is one of New Zealand’s most respected rugby writers and columnists. He has won multiple awards for journalism and has written several books about sport.