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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.
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