Rugby for sale, part 2: Playing on the breadline

By EUGENE BINGHAM


A spare set of jerseys nearly came between Fiji and the World Cup tournament.

Before the tournament, the IRB issued an edict requiring all 20 competing nations to provide 30 autographed jerseys.

For superpowers such as the All Blacks and England, backed by clothing giants, the request was a piece of cake. Fiji had to buy the jerseys themselves, and it nearly sank them.

"You have to wonder whether the people in Dublin [at the International Rugby Board] have got any idea what is going on," says Fiji's commercial manager, Charlie Charters.

"It was a completely needless expense. The jerseys are probably going to be auctioned or given to sponsors, but does the IRB even know what it's like for countries like Fiji?"

The world of rugby in the professional era is divided into the haves, such as New Zealand - which could afford the luxury of having Norm Maxwell stay in Melbourne for a week just in case Ali Williams had to be replaced - and the have-nots.

"We are running the gas tank so close to empty that if we have to replace a player, we won't have sufficient reserves to kit the replacement out in number ones [dress gear]," says Charters.

Part one of this two-part series described how rugby's rich were getting richer. The IRB's profit from the World Cup is expected to be $175 million. Australian rugby will bank nearly $70 million from the event.

The New Zealand Rugby Union last year posted a $9.8 million profit, and is in a healthy position to renegotiate the multimillion-dollar broadcasting deal with Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation.

In preparation for those talks, representatives of the New Zealand, Australian and South African unions flew to Monaco last month to rub shoulders with the world's sporting powerbrokers.

For island rugby nations, and newcomers such as Georgia, professional rugby is a world away from glitzy conferences in Monaco. And in New Zealand too, some provinces are financially crippled.

The problems are not just financial.

Administrators from unions such as Counties Manukau share the concerns of their struggling Pacific counterparts that rugby will be the loser at the end of the day.

If the rugby structure at the grassroots is obliterated, will boys drift away from rugby to other sports?

Counties Manukau chief executive Daniel Clifford worries that the next super-strong, super-fast kid from Weymouth - where the local club produced Jonah Lomu and Joe Rokocoko - will end up playing league.

Auckland, one of the "big five" provinces which is performing well, has more than 20 rugby development officers who visit schools and clubs to spread the game.

Counties Manukau has one and a half - the half is shared with Thames Valley.

"From Weymouth to Coromandel, we have one development officer covering the schools," says Clifford.

In the Pacific, administrators warn rugby will limp along until Polynesia is no longer the great breeding ground for the sport that it has been.

"The frustration we have in Fiji, Samoa and Tonga is that the more we develop rugby, the more players we lose," says Charters.

"Inevitably, you would just shrug your shoulders and say, 'We are not going to do it'."

In the islands, rugby bodies earning third world income are having to compete with wealthy clubs and franchises offering their players first world contracts.

Before the World Cup, some Fijians playing in European club competitions announced their early retirement from international rugby.

Fiji says it was because the players were under pressure from the clubs and faced having wages stopped or contracts cut if they went to Australia.

Georgia also knows the frustration. Team spokesman Gia Kublashvili says some of its players were sent to clubs in France to gain first class experience.

Three have stayed in France instead of joining the team.

"They can't come because of the money they get in France - it's not big money, but it's enough for looking after a family in Georgia," says Kublashvili.

Like Fiji, Samoa, and Tonga, Georgia wonders when the IRB will stand up to the clubs and enforce rules that say players must be made available for internationals. Especially the World Cup.

Former National Party president and PR maestro Michelle Boag seems an unlikely champion for the Pacific.

But sipping hot chocolate in a Newmarket cafe, she boils over discussing the trouble with world rugby.

She was introduced to Samoan rugby by merchant banker and entrepreneur Sir Michael Fay, who became a benefactor of Manu Samoa after the start of professionalism.

As chief executive of Manu Samoa for several years, Boag discovered the insatiable appetite the country had for the sport.

"Rugby is part of the school curriculum - you can't be a boy in Samoa and not play rugby."

But she believes this enthusiasm for the game will wither, constricted by the pressures of professionalism. She blames the sport's ruling body, the IRB, which she accuses of having a colonial attitude to the islands.

"Even to the point where when we became involved, all the [IRB's] development funding was being channelled through Australia. It would be up to Australia to decide how much of the money Samoa would get."

The level of support from the IRB is a sore point the world over.

Countries get development grants from the IRB Trust. Nations such as Samoa and Fiji get the same amount as New Zealand and Australia - about £150,000 ($417,000). The IRB's founding unions, including England, get about £175,000 ($487,000).

The money cannot be used to support the professional side of the game - the area in which Samoa needs most help.

It is the same story in provincial New Zealand. In Pukekohe, a dwindling number of fans - 400 people were at one of Counties Manukau's NPC second division games this year - watch helplessly as top talent from the region drifts away.

Men who honed their rugby skills as boys in Counties colours are starring for other teams where they gain top-level experience - and earn decent salaries.


Blame the Super 12. Its rules say Super 12 teams cannot put pressure on players to stay in the franchises' home union.

But, as Daniel Clifford says, players realise that if they leave a Super 12 team to go back and play NPC rugby elsewhere, the danger is that their place will be taken by the time they get back.

And paying players much is not an option for Counties Manukau where the budget is a shadow of what it was in the glory days of 1996-97, when it made the division one final.

Players such as Jonah Lomu and Joeli Vidiri drew large crowds to Pukekohe and helped the union win sponsorship deals.

Today, it survives hand-to-mouth. It gets an NZRFU grant of between $250,000 and $300,000 to pay its running costs, including the three and a half staff (down from nine).

As part of the Chiefs franchise, it received about $34,000 this year. Gaming machine money helps support much of the amateur game, including the age-grade representative teams. Sponsorship deals help give the players token payments.

But the sponsorships have been seriously reduced. It is understood that about eight years ago, Counties Manukau got about $250,000 from brewery sponsorship.

This season, it got about $50,000, mostly in product rather than cash.

A major millstone is a $200,000 debt for which the union is being charged interest of about 14 per cent.

At the end of 2001, the union was in a dire financial state and appealed to the NZRFU for help.

The national body, which used to give loans to provincial unions but has not done so since 1999, helped out by going guarantor for an overdraft.

The union is now spending money on servicing the debt that it would prefer to be using for rugby.

From the NZRFU's new headquarters in Wellington, chief executive Chris Moller is aware of the precarious position of some provinces.

"There are a number that are closer to the plimsoll line than one would like to see," he says.

But empathy does not convert to charity. "We will always look at the option, but I don't think it's necessarily our business to bail out unions that get into financial difficulty," says Moller.


Since joining the union from dairy giant Fonterra last year, Moller has become used to hearing criticism about the NZRFU's treatment of provincial and island rugby.

In the build-up to the cup, Samoan coach John Boe and assistant coach Michael Jones - both New Zealand rugby stalwarts - fired shots at the NZRFU.

But Moller says the NZRFU has supported island rugby. He cites last year's test against Fiji in Wellington when the gate-takings were given to Fiji, and the fact that the NZRFU has allowed staff to be seconded to the islands - Boe came into that category until his contract was cut in September.

The NZRFU, says Moller, has also championed island causes on the IRB, where none of the Pacific nations has a voice on the board.

For example, the union wants the IRB to drop the one-country rule which prohibits players representing, for example, Samoa after their All Black careers end.

But, again, Moller defends the New Zealand position.

"Most of the players where that discussion occurs are New Zealanders who have dual nationality."

And he says the reason so many players who could be eligible to play for Pacific countries have stayed in New Zealand playing NPC rugby during the World Cup is not restrictive contracts or money.

"They know that if they go and play for one of the other nations then their dream of putting on the black jersey - under current [IRB] arrangements - is history."

Michelle Boag does not accept New Zealand's claim that it is doing the best it can.

"The New Zealand union always wants to be seen to be doing the right thing, but in the meantime they put in place rules like you can't have a Super 12 contract unless you are eligible for New Zealand," she says.

And she says there are numerous examples of players being poached from Samoa by New Zealand sides.

Charlie Charters says poaching goes on in Fiji, too. Agents are even luring Fijian schoolboys to New Zealand on scholarships.

"The challenge is to get all the elements in New Zealand rugby to act in concert," says Charters. "To put the NZRFU at the centre of the bullseye is to miss the point.

"It's New Zealand Rugby Inc. At the moment, there are those for whom it doesn't serve their purpose to think about [Fiji's] interests."