Paul Thomas: Morally indignant dig deep to shame NZRU

The All Blacks' jersey sponsor AIG paid $205b to the US Treasury. Photo / Getty Images

Isn't it about time New Zealand rugby stopped believing its own PR and faced the ugly truth?

We like to think we're special: the little country where the game is played and followed by all levels of society and which boasts the greatest team in the game, a team that actually transcends the game by virtue of a mystique based on a legacy of extraordinary success with style.

But behind the relentless spin and developments that supposedly demonstrate a contribution to the game beyond these shores — for instance, that New Zealanders have coached all but three of the top 15 national teams — lies a dark reality.

It turns out that, far from being heroes, the All Blacks are amoral mercenaries directed by an organisation — the NZRU — which is the rugby equivalent of SPECTRE (Special Executive for Counter-Intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion), the sinister criminal organisation that James Bond devoted his literary life to defeating.

As is usually the case when unpalatable truths are revealed, we have whistle-blowers to thank. Like Samoan midfielder Eliota Fuimoana-Sapulo who reached back in history to show it was ever thus: "There was a time when the United Nations asked all the nations in the world not to have sporting relations with apartheid South Africa. There was one country that decided not to listen. That country was New Zealand and that team was the All Blacks. And the reason was for money."

(New Zealand wasn't the only country and it wasn't about money, but moral indignation doesn't sweat the small stuff. As we shall see.)

According to Fuimoana-Sapulo, if Hitler had been a rugby fan and the Nazis had played rugby, New Zealand, South Africa and Germany would have formed their own axis of evil. That's how bad New Zealand rugby is.

Next up Fairfax columnist Mark Reason blew the whistle on NZRU's exploitation of Samoan players: "The NZRU doesn't want to promote international rugby in Samoa. The NZRU wants economic migrants from the islands who come up through New Zealand's colonial rugby programmes. The NZRU takes the bodies, moulds them, keeps the best and lets Samoa choose from the reject pile."

As a result New Zealand has "zero moral authority in the global game". That's how bad New Zealand rugby is.

I suppose there's another way of looking at it: that Samoan-New Zealanders get some benefit in terms of athletic and personal development from their involvement in the New Zealand system, then get to choose which country they represent.

Or is Reason saying the likes of Keven Mealamu and Ma'a Nonu don't play for the All Blacks out of choice, that they're commodities, pieces of meat, incapable of making a decision? There are various ways to describe that view, "patronising" being the most polite.

You'd think the saving grace of having zero moral authority is that you can't go any lower. Apparently you can. According to Reason, "the NZRU further forfeited any moral authority when it took sponsorship money from AIG".

Why? It was "dirty money" because in 2006 AIG was fined over US$1 billion ($1.17 billion) for accounting malpractice and in 2008 received the biggest bail-out in US history: US$182.3 billion.

"The financial reality is that the All Blacks are being part-paid by American citizens," says Reason. "If I was a Chicago taxpayer, I would want free entry to the All Blacks game as a part-owner."

Pity the poor American taxpayer. After paying for the War on Drugs, the War on Terror, the imperial presidency and the Supreme Court that seems determined to eliminate every obstacle in the way of the USA becoming a full-blown plutocracy, he and she are now having to line the All Blacks' pockets.

Well, for a couple of months at most. The AIG sponsorship was announced in October 2012. In December 2012 the US Treasury revealed AIG had repaid US$205 billion. In other words, US taxpayers made a US$22.7 billion profit on their investment.

Perhaps New Zealand rugby isn't as black as it's painted. The principal partner and jersey sponsor of the 2009 and 2013 British and Irish Lions, the team that some British rugby folk would elevate above the All Blacks in terms of status, brand power and embodiment of the spirit of rugby, was mega-bank HSBC.

A number of countries have accused HSBC of money laundering. In 2012 it was fined US$1.9 billion by the US Government for money laundering on a massive scale on behalf of Mexican drug cartels. HSBC also admitted complicity in helping Iran and Sudan get around sanctions.

Moral authority is obviously in short supply.

Pity we can't say the same about misplaced moral outrage.