Ardie Savea runs the water during the All Blacks' test against Fiji last year. Photo / Getty
Ardie Savea runs the water during the All Blacks' test against Fiji last year. Photo / Getty
OPINION:
There's no such thing as a beyond-reproach corporation that can claim to operate faultless ethical, social and environmental policies and practices.
No money is squeaky clean, and so every institution which has dug into their pocket to slap their brand on a sporting code or team, could be chastisedfor an ethical failing in their production process, be accused of an environmental breach in their supply chain or deemed a driver of social dysfunction.
For those in the business of procuring sponsorships for sports bodies, teams and competitions, the landscape unquestionably has significant grey areas where there are conflicting and often equally compelling reasons to accept a sponsorship as there are to reject it.
Many find it reprehensible that banks lend to companies waist-deep in the Earth's core looking for fossil fuels, but so too do these institutions fund green-technology business and imperative community services such as Plunket. Mobile telecommunications firms connect the world and enable a global knowledge economy to flourish, but we don't always ask how they source the component parts of their hardware or what sort of labour practices are in operation in the factories where the latest must-have devices are made.
But sports bodies and professional teams are too fond of the everything-is-grey argument because it allows them, however tenuous the rationale, to justify accepting money from companies whose product is in no way aligned with high-performance sport.
Many sponsorships are morally, ethically, socially and environmentally grey, but some aren't, especially not in rugby.
Some are simply indefensible and for too long New Zealand's professional rugby teams have relied on their fans to bury any moral outrage they feel about specific associations and stay quiet for the good of the team.
But for how much longer can this silence be maintained in an age of social activism.
Can fans, who are asking wider questions about the provenance of the billions of dollars of private equity money that is being invested in sport, continue to pretend that it doesn't matter what egregious endorsements their sporting heroes are asked to make?
A KFC promotion during a Super Rugby match. Photo / Photosport
It's time for everyone to care more about how sport is earning its money and look more closely at what sort of sponsors have got their hooks into professional rugby.
There's an uncomfortable juxtaposition when athletes who avoid sugary drinks and fast food ply their trade in competitions whose sponsors sell those same products.
Junk food and sugary drinks come into this category, specifically in a New Zealand rugby context, KFC – which has an independent agreement with the Super Rugby clubs – and Powerade, which is an All Blacks' sponsor.
The conflict that Super Rugby clubs promoting KFC creates is staggering and, in the context of a wider obesity endemic, wildly irresponsible, morally bereft and cynical to a degree that is shameful.
Every year provincial unions around the country recruit young hopefuls to their academy programmes.
Many, even at 18 and as stars of the First XV scene, are already significantly overweight. The academy managers educate them, drumming out the bad habits and encouraging healthy eating.
They strip the weight off these young men, encouraging better eating habits, only for these same players to graduate into Super Rugby where their franchises endorse the fast food products of KFC.
If they go on to make the All Blacks, they may have to make an advert for Powerade.
Money shouldn't be able to buy patently false endorsements.
Super Rugby players in a KFC advertisement. Photo / Facebook/KFC
Rugby administrators can make whatever case they like to ensure these sponsorships don't sit too heavily on their conscience, but the undeniable fact to come out of the pandemic – one that those with a degree from the University of Facebook can't twist or distort – is that the underlying health of New Zealanders is not good.
Nor can anyone pretend that our youth are not heavily influenced by marketing and fast food plays a part in New Zealand's growing obesity epidemic affecting many of our children. Science and research might confirm this, but common sense and a moral compass should be enough for us to know the truth.
It would be equally difficult to pretend that the legions of children turning up at dentistry practices with horribly rotten baby teeth are not in some way linked back to seeing their heroes glug down sugar-laden drinks.
Rugby is legitimising consumption practices and habits that would be out of place among its top players.
That's not grey or even close to being grey, and hopefully with Russian oligarchs being told their money is no longer welcome in Europe's glamour football clubs, we may be about to see all forms of investment in professional sport, particularly rugby, come under the sort of scrutiny they have avoided to date.
