0
![Not allowed!](images/buttons/down_dis.png)
![Not allowed!](images/buttons/up_dis.png)
I was just having a look at the ARU Financials. How could if they took us over in August 2016 could the player payments for August 2016 to December 2016 come up to $3.6 mill?
Is this the case of a parent entity loading up the cost codes of the junior entity?
With the ARU's argument about finances, it seems the ARU is questioning the Own the Force campaign. Is there any way we could ask Mark McGowan to do something like underwrite the campaign, to make up any shortfall if the campaign can't reach it's target? A guarantee would surely answer any questions the ARU might have about the financial security of the Western Force.
Surely if the The Force were cleared by ASIC and the shares target is being met, they can't argue with that. From what Hansie mentioned the target has already been met, am I wrong? In just a few days Own The Force is taking off, and it's a bit late for them to be making comments. Doubtless the ARU were responsible for causing the delays of the release with the convenient bad press. Sounds like they're clutching at straws which is a good sign that they're desperate.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/spor...65d1bbb0f1c826
Posted this in another thread.
"12 Years aSupporter" starring the #SeaOfBlue
Slightly misleading headline in The Age (who'd thunk that?)
Rebels admit the worst: It May be Over
http://www.smh.com.au/rugby-union/un...13-gvkik8.html
"The main difference between playing League and Union is that now I get my hangovers on Monday instead of Sunday - Tom David
I have decided that should the Force get canned i'm going to support the AllBlacks, F**K the ARU...
Interesting
Brumbies sucked back into fight for Super Rugby survival
The Australian: April 17, 2017
Wayne Smith
The Brumbies are being drawn back into the vortex of the fight for survival in the Super Rugby competition, with both the Western Force and the Melbourne Rebels questioning why the Canberra side was removed from the endangered list.
The Australian Rugby Union chairman Cameron Clyne announced at his press conference last Monday that the Brumbies had been excused from the process as one of the three teams potentially to be cut from Super Rugby.
Only the Force and the Rebels remained on the hit list. No explanation was given for why the Brumbies were absolved. Indeed, no weighting of items on the ARU’s checklist of priorities has ever been published. No one knows, for instance, what weighting is given to “long-term financial sustainability” compared with “fan engagement” or “prospects for growth”.
While Force and Rebels officials declined to comment on the record about the process, the questions are now coming loud and clear from both camps, and they want answers.
Given that both franchises are threatening the ARU with legal action — the Force have actually taken out a writ and the Rebels have warned the ARU to desist from saying they could be cut for fear of exacerbating damages in any future lawsuit — it would appear the gloves are off.
As has been its stance since the original SANZAAR crisis meeting in London on March 10-11, the ARU has made no comment on the hostile Good Friday legal letter that masqueraded as a Rebels press release.
Clyne was scheduled to appear on ABC Grandstand on Saturday afternoon to talk about the crisis, but withdrew at the 11th hour.
It is also becoming clear that the ARU negotiated the Force’s demise at the SANZAAR meeting without mentioning that it had signed an alliance with the Perth club when it took it over in August.
That alliance has largely been ignored by the national body throughout this process although the Force writ went right to the heart of ARU assurances that there would be a Super Rugby presence in Western Australia during the course of the current broadcast deal.
The ARU is running out of wriggle room but so far has not acted on what seems to be the logical course of action: getting ARU chief executive Bill Pulver back on the plane to Melbourne to see if he can negotiate a deal with Rebels owner Andrew Cox.
Cox told The Australian he was not interested in selling the Rebels to the ARU if the purpose is to close the club. But he has remained tight-lipped about whether he would be prepared to merge his club with the Brumbies.
Brumbies boss Michael Thomson has consistently denied he is interested in a merger, as has head coach Stephen Larkham, but if the imperative is to trim five teams back to four, then it is shaping as the least-worst option.
One thing is becoming increasingly clear — one of the biggest losers in all of this, perhaps the biggest loser of all, is the ARU. It has botched this process from the very beginning. But as this imbroglio drags on, the increasing likelihood is that the final outcome will be that nothing is done.
Although SANZAAR has decreed that a 15-team competition will be in place for next season, that all depends on whether Australia can cut one team and South Africa can shed two franchises.
At the moment, it appears likely the Australians will end up in court, which would cause massive financial loss. The South Africans do not expect to have their position resolved — one way or the other — until June.
If the Australian experience is any guide, the republic’s six franchises will work harmoniously enough right up to the point where teams are viewed as either saved or doomed, at which point it becomes every man for himself.
For the moment, however, the Southern Kings are using their rugby to make an impassioned plea to remain in Super Rugby. Their matches against the Force and the Queensland Reds over the past week have provided some of the most entertaining rugby of the season. Though they lost both times, they scored 11 tries in the two matches.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/spor...312f9ef9cfddde
Thank goodness RugbyWA served the writ on the ARU and is prepared to fight through the courts, or this would be all over with us as the loser. If the above article is accurate the threat of hostile legal proceedings (supported by background discussions) seems to be our only chance.
Will the brumbies have any grounds for legal proceedings?
I would suspect that they won't roll over any faster than anybody else.
C'mon the![]()
![]()
Nor should they roll over, the big difference seems to be that they don't have a Alliance Agreement with the ARU. Will prolly depend on the details of their original contract, and any subsequent mods. Big thing in our favour is that we have a very recent, legally binding, contract that was signed on the good-faith basis we would be supported until at least 2020.
Very interesting that journos are now running the merge the Brumbies and Rebels option, I wonder if it is their own assessment or if the ARU are once again leaking shit (possibly to test the water before their next move)
Good support on gagr from the Aussie sevens
" Team stalwart James Stannard, a 29-cap scrumhalf for the Force between 2008-2012, expressed his profound disappointment that his old team were favourites for the axe.
“Australian Rugby definitely needs a change somewhere,” Stannard admitted. “I don’t have the answers but I hope that it’s not the Force,”
“It would be disappointing if they chose to cut the Force because I think there’s great potential to grow the game over there and there’s just so much support for the team.
“I think even if the Brumbies or Rebels moved to Perth there’s great potential to grow the game in the West.”
World Rugby’s Sevens newcomer of the year Henry Hutchison said: “I haven’t played at Super Rugby level yet but I know it’s the toughest provincial competition in the world.
“At the moment Australian teams are fighting hard but the scores aren’t going our way.
“Maybe cutting a team will strengthen the other squads, but if we didn’t have the Force we wouldn’t have found players like Dane Haylett-Petty and Adam Coleman, so it’s a tough one to take.”
By the sound of it, merge is going to be the only option, but then you're stuck with the where to locate argument.
I would be no more willing to support some half assed "Western force" based in Canberra which plays a couple of home games over here.
If it contained a strong contingent of local players, I might show up to matches in Perth, but even that's unlikely.
Maybe Canberra people will be different, they don't seem to show up to matches all that often anyhow.
C'mon the![]()
![]()