I think it was an interview on Gold Digger where John O'Neill himself mentioned putting $100 Million from the World Cup into a future fund maybe the $45 Mill is after his planned savings lockup.
O'Neill was removed because he wasn't going to give the money to the Heartland unions . I think the Bill Pulver parlance is to piss up against a wall.
Maybe the true figure is somewhere in the middle, maybe it's just a Rugby fishing story (or a prop scoring a try story) the numbers get bigger and more unbelievable every time the story is told.
Suffice it to say, Rugby Administrators have been throwing money down black holes since they had any!