The French legal system has once again proven to be a key part of New Zealand Rugby’s commercial strategy, with the wheels of justice moving so slowly as to have almost guaranteed the national body will carry its $50 million-a-year sponsorship with Altrad to term.
In what has become a plot fit for a Netflix drama, Mohed Altrad, whose eponymous building services company owns the naming rights to the All Blacks jersey, will have his appeal against a bribery and corruption conviction heard in September next year.
Altrad, who secured a six-year (2022-2027), almost $300m deal to put his name on the All Blacks kit, was found guilty in December 2022 of active corruption, influence peddling and misuse of company assets in relation to the way he had earlier secured the same naming rights to the French national jersey.
He was sentenced to 18 months in prison and a €50,000 ($101,000) fine, but he immediately filed an appeal, which suspended his sentence.
The appeal hearing has taken four years to secure because prosecutors have been caught up in the trial of former French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who this week was sentenced to a five-year jail term after being found guilty of criminal conspiracy in a case related to millions of euros of illicit funds from the late Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi.
The courts have also been dealing with the case of far-right political leader Marine Le Pen, who was found guilty of using European parliamentary money to run a fake job scheme.
The ingredients of this wider story are incredible – a corrupt former president, a shady Libyan financier with family links to a dictator, and a high-profile politician who ran on a ticket to de-demonise the National Front have all conspired to ensure there will be a four-year gap between Altrad’s first trial and appeal.
And while the people of France may cry “sacre bleu!” in frustration with the glacial pace at which the rich and powerful are held to account, New Zealand Rugby (NZR) has quietly tilted a glass of vin rouge in the general direction of Paris, knowing the four-year appeal process has created a hugely convenient legal dark spot to hide within.
While Altrad remains in legal limbo – his conviction suspended while he awaits his appeal hearing – NZR can continue to take his $50m a year and put off making any moral or ethical judgments about whether this is an appropriate sponsorship for a brand that is supposedly built on the values of hard work, honesty and integrity.
NZR has been happy to buy into the idea that Altrad has to be found guilty of corruption not once but twice to be a bad fit for the All Blacks.
It’s an egregious ethical cop-out to say Altrad can only be judged by the judicial system and not NZR, and it’s an incredible brand risk to continue to hide behind French bureaucracy as the rationale for continuing the sponsorship.
By the time Altrad is back in court, the sponsorship will have about 12 months left to run, by which point, regardless of the outcome, the likely cost and hassle of terminating the contract will be greater than any continued risk to the brand that would come from seeing things through to the end of 2027.
And the unavoidable question in all this is whether NZR would be showing such a lack of moral leadership if this wasn’t the most lucrative front-of-jersey deal in world rugby?
It looks awfully like $300m is enough cash for NZR to convince itself that it has no other option but to keep collecting the Altrad cash while the slow-moving wheels of justice run their course.
NZR, it seems, wants to passively present a sense that it has no other option – that any move to walk away from the deal would trigger a ferocious legal response from Altrad the national body couldn’t afford to fight.
It’s possible to even detect an undertone of NZR seeing itself as almost a victim – a good faith operator blindsided by a bad actor and held hostage by a quite stunning A-list of French white-collar criminals.
Except this doesn’t stack up as Altrad had already been arrested and charged when the deal was signed, and it’s not the French courts or the threat of legal retribution locking NZR into the agreement, but the fear of not being able to secure $50m a year from an alternative sponsor.
Gregor Paul is one of New Zealand’s most respected rugby writers and columnists. He has won multiple awards for journalism and written several books about sport.