Rugby: Troubled Otago board may be asked to step aside

Steve Tew. Photo / Ross Setford

New Zealand Rugby Union chief executive Steve Tew has given the first hint the Otago board may be asked to step aside because of the union's financial troubles.

Tew said an NZRU board meeting in Wellington had spent considerable time looking at the state of the Otago union.

"It is very serious. We are working incredibly hard getting all the facts, information and the options before us. That will unfold over the next few days," Tew said.

He said there was a lot of work to still be done, and there were plenty of different parties involved.

A change manager, Jeremy Curragh, had been brought in last month to work through financial issues for the union and try to come up with a viable plan for the future.

The union was due to report a loss of several hundred thousand dollars at its annual meeting in Dunedin on Monday. Tew and union chairman Mike Eagle met union officials earlier this week in Dunedin.

The ORFU also has negative equity of more than $2 million.

Tew declined to say whether the board would be asked to step aside.

"It will depend entirely what the solutions are. But these are circumstances that are not too dissimilar to Southland, which was the condition of their loan."

Rugby Southland got into financial trouble last year and was lent money from the NZRU on the condition the board resigned.

Tew said there was not an easy solution to what Otago faced.

"The work we are doing now is so we can line up a whole lot of things to get a solution that is workable.

"Our ultimate goal here is to make sure the community that is affected by this do not miss out. But that is not easily achieved."

Otago chairman Wayne Graham said he had not given much thought to his future, and it was in the hands of the national union. Graham had been chairman for two years.