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Well personally, apart from smelling a few sour grapes wafting across the Nullabor, I would think that the ARU should be embracing this kind of Corporate zeal for Rugby Union and looking to encourage it at any possibility if we are to avoid the current mass exodous to the European Clubs that New Zealand is experiencing.
As I have said elsewhere in the last week, unless the Southern Hemisphere wants to be relegated to a European Recruiting League we need to make some drastic changes.
The ARU have choices to make right now, they can choose to keep the status quo and pretend somehow to retain a few shreds of the Amateur Era and slowly drift away to insignificance or, they can choose to pursue the Corporate dollar that will make Australia, and by extension the Southern Hemisphere, a major player in the future of this Code. They can choose to use our 100 year head start to take on the looming USA based World Series.
They can choose to pull their heads out of their..........the sand and move this sport into the elite level.
Sure, some of the dealings outlined in the articles you are about to read may be a little shifty, but here's hoping that it will send a shock wave through the ARU to awaken them from their slumber and to use this as a landmark for change, not an excuse to play Big Brother.
And to Mr Johnston, thank you for your faith in the Rugby commodity!
Payments to players but heat on Force
Gerard Ryle and Jacquelin Magnay
Saturday, May 26, 2007
Wallaby players including Matt Giteau, the country's most expensive recruit, are entangled in secret payments that have the potential to rock the Australian Rugby Union.
A swag of cash and share inducements involving the controversial Perth fuel technology company Firepower were used to woo players to the Western Force Super 14 club in breach of ARU protocols.
The ARU has been concerned about these secret payments and offers to players by the Western Force to tempt them across the Nullarbor to join the two-year old Super 14 team.
The Herald has learnt that the chief executive of Western Force, Peter O'Meara, was directly involved in introducing the Firepower sponsor Tim Johnston to at least one player-manager. Under the protocols, no state union is to be involved in facilitating, procuring or arranging third-party deals as an inducement to sign any player without ARU approval.
Documents seen by the Herald refer to the possibility of tens of thousands of dollars in additional payments to players involving a potential arrangement with Firepower. Mr O'Meara's signature appears at the bottom of one of them.
But Mr O'Meara told the Herald that no offers had been underwritten and he had not facilitated any meetings between players or their agents and Firepower.
Mr O'Meara, who is touted as favourite to fill the vacant job of ARU chief executive, said he had no knowledge of any third-party deals.
"Any arrangement that Firepower has negotiated with sports people, Western Force, ARU or cricket or racing, they have all been done through that organisation, not through me," he said. "I haven't facilitated any of those relationships." But some of the deals would appear to have problems. Some bills have allegedly not been paid on time. Some players are understood to be owed tens of thousands of dollars.
The Western Force's aggressive policy of wooing star players has long drawn suspicion from the ARU and other Super 14 clubs. It has been central to the team's rapid improvement. The club rose from wooden spooners last year to the second most successful Australian team this season.
An ARU inquiry into the club's alleged wooing of the Waratah forward Al Kanaar, who was seen at a Western Force game, led to a $110,000 fine last May. In an appeal in June the fine was reduced and part of it suspended.
The Herald believes that Firepower shares and cash made up a part of the biggest contract in rugby history - the recruitment of Giteau to the Western Force last year for a reported $4.5 million over three years.
Giteau told the Herald two weeks ago, in a three-way conversation with Firepower public relations officers, that he had been paid and "everything was fine".
Firepower's Mr Johnston, who bought the Sydney Kings basketball team this month for a reported $2 million, is understood to be seeking to list his company on London's Alternative Investment Market. The listing has been postponed several times since March last year. A spokesman for Mr Johnston said yesterday that he "won't comment on players' financial arrangements".
Firepower's reported 1200 shareholders include a number of well-known current and former AFL players. There is no suggestion that shareholders knew about the player deals.
Firepower is a also major sponsor of the Sydney Kings, the South Sydney Rabbitohs rugby league team, the Tongan national rugby union team, the Porsche Carrera Cup motor sport series and V8 Supercar racing.
Contact the reporter gryle@smh.com.au
How Force got their Firepower
Saturday, May 26, 2007
The big spenders of the West have created big headaches in domestic rugby, write Jacquelin Magnay and Gerard Ryle.
When Firepower chairman Tim Johnston was quizzed about just what attracted Matt Giteau across the Nullarbor, he enthused about the lifestyle, the challenges of a fledgling club, and the fact Giteau could live in an apartment right next to his mate Matt Henjak. Talk to anyone else - including Henjak's former Brumbies teammates - and the attraction was startlingly clear: Johnston's money.
Giteau's massive $4.5 million three-year deal, of which a hefty whack was from Firepower, prompted him to wryly note that he celebrated by buying his mum a new pair of shoes. Giteau's parents had been wined and dined, and players had visited Johnston's flashy $9 million house and been taken out on a boat.
For a player who was just 23 with two houses already in his portfolio, Giteau was cognisant that the good money exists for only a short time. Firepower was topping any other deal on the table by tens of thousands of dollars a year. Other players heard about the big bucks, and the word around town was that Johnston was "the Bill Gates of the environment" and all at once the long commute and upheaval of changing clubs wasn't so unattractive.
Suddenly it wasn't that hard to snaffle the signings of Drew Mitchell from the Queensland Reds and Ryan Cross from the Sydney Roosters rugby league club, and Troy Takiari from the NSW Waratahs. Being coached by former All Blacks coach John Mitchell was important, but the huge money on offer was, essentially, at a level unprecedented in provincial rugby.
Which is why the big-spending Force got a lot of people offside. The ARU was suspicious of some of the dealings and last year slapped the club with a record $110,000 fine for inappropriately trying to woo Waratahs forward Al Kanaar. Kanaar had been seen at a Force match. "He [Kanaar] didn't leave here with anything in hand from us," Western Force chairman Geoff Stooke said after his club copped the penalty. "We made no offer, there was no financial discussion."
But the Force's poaching tactics were aggressive - not only to get their initial line-up, which finished as wooden spooners in their inaugural Super 14 season, but their repeated raids on rival clubs to strengthen the ranks for the second year.
Speculation surrounded the key role of Firepower, and other "Friends of the Force" corporates, in attracting the players to the west. A stellar line-up in Wallabies stars Nathan Sharpe, Brendan Cannon, Scott Fava, Henjak, David Fittler and Lachlan Mackay went across as inaugural players. But not all of these players were Firepower-linked. At least one player manager steered his star away from the company because he felt negotiations were too vague. Others had third-party deals negotiated directly between player managers and Firepower.
The manager of Cross, Mitchell and Cameron Shepherd confirmed his players and coach were sponsored by Firepower on third-party deals, but said all had been negotiated directly with the sponsor well after their club contracts had been signed.
Any corporate contributions should be at arm's length from any player contract negotiations, a proposition repeated by the Force chief executive Peter O'Meara to the Herald. O'Meara told the Herald he has not seen any of the third-party deals, is not aware of the details of such deals, and would not comment on whether the club may face legal exposure if any third-party sponsor reneges on a player's deal.
"The corporate deals are independent of the player contract," he said. "I don't know the details of any third-party sponsorships and I don't know what the details involve," he said.
The Force were created after Rugby WA beat Victoria for the new Australian Super 14 franchise in December 2004 after a pitch that relied heavily on the corporate backing a Perth team would get from mining companies.
"They were very bullish on sponsorship, they firmly believed the mining sector would get right behind them," said a member of the selection committee.
O'Meara was, according to insiders, the stand-out candidate for the chief executive position because of a background in rugby boards at both NSW and Queensland and his mid-level banking experience. He was appointed in February 2005, around the same time as Mitchell.
By the end of 2005 the club had attracted more than $4m in wide-ranging corporate sponsorship, from naming sponsor airline Emirates, Firepower, apparel wear company ISC, health care group MBF, mining company Woodside, recruitment company Integrated Group, beverage companies Lion Nathan and Goundrey Wines, and car rental company Thrifty. By 2006 the deals were worth more than $4.6m.
Club membership and corporate hospitality added another $10 million in revenue. It was a $20-22 million club that forecast a profit by 2006 of just over $1 million. Memberships exceeded initial expectations. On the field, performances also improved. The team finished seventh this season, and for a time was in second place. Club captain Sharpe, as well as Giteau, Scott Staniforth, Shepherd and Drew Mitchell have been named in the Wallabies team for tonight's Test against Wales.
"We have a three-year plan in place to develop our team and we will stick to that regardless of results," Mitchell said in 2005.
Late last year, around the time he sought to buy the Sydney Kings basketball team for about $2m, Johnston increased his sponsorship of the Force, becoming naming sponsor of the Western Force's academy program.
O'Meara is best friends with Johnston, having grown up playing rugby in Brisbane together.
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Originally Posted by Burgs
