By gatesy -
July 3rd 2009 @ 1:01am
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Lote, what happened mate?!
Tahs Lote Tuqiri salutes after scoring - AAP Image/NZPA, Ross Setford
I don’t think that Lote is necessarily in the top four wingers, so it might be right that he didn’t make the squad. But that said, there are some very interesting issues at play here.
I just wanted to qualify that I am not a Lote Tuqiri fanatic, but I am prepared to stand up for him!
What an amazing turn of events. I think that the way this pans out will be quite interesting.
Whatever it is that Lote is alleged to have done, my uneducated guess is that John O’Neill sees an asset that is under-used, a very expensive one at that, seizes his opportunity, and says: “let’s cut it out of the inventory and save ourselves the mega bucks that my predecessor committed us to when we couldn’t really afford it”.
Why?
It’s a convenient time to do so, since all of the major footy codes (except football, it seems) are running scared and trying to turn all of the players into choir boys, who are “role models” for … who? Other choir boys and violin players who don’t play footy anyway?
I mean, if it’s the mums who frighten those big, tough male administrators into this, why are they (the administrators) administering in the first place?
So, I think that Lote can become a hero out of all of this.
Why? Because now, if we believe everything that we read, he is taking the ARU on in the courts. He may well lose, on the facts and circumstances of his particular case, but this may just become a test case, especially with the media circling and ready to hop on the bandwagon of the bloke who has the best story.
And who just may smell like a winner.
You see, I think that the media has backed itself into a corner where they have sensationalised every player misdemeanour and indiscretion to the point where everyone is running scared, so that the media might be almost have bitten the hands that feeds them. Us, the public, the games, and their readership.
So just maybe there are a few who are looking for an honourable “out” here, and lo and behold, along comes John O’Neill and Lote.
You beauty! This might just be the way of getting things back on track.
How?
Well, it looks like Lote is fairly serious, otherwise the ARU would be huffing and puffing. But they are choosing to stay quiet, which means that their exorbitantly priced lawyers have advised them that Lote’s exorbitantly priced lawyers are packing down with serious intent for a pushover try and, as far as Lote, the bloke (as opposed to Lote the figurehead) is concerned, this is bloody serious stuff.
I mean, thanks to Gary Flowers, Lote can’t earn what he would like to if he has to go back to the NRL, so he is forced to consider other possibilities.
As far as we, the great unwashed public, were concerned, as of two days ago, Lote’s biggest problems were getting back into the Wallaby run-on squad and finding a matching pair of green and gold socks in the laundry basket.
Anyway, it looks like this is the ticket. ARU, NRL and AFL players must have been waiting for someone to come along and take on the “employer”.
How legal or proper are these sort of “three strikes” clauses? How reasonable are they when tested against the employment norms or principles in other industries? How much of an influence on an employee’s livelihood should the “role model” issue be?
Are these fair and reasonable restraints to place on employees? How far can an employer go when balancing the interests of the product against the interests of the employee? How long do you have to wait between “incidents” to justify giving someone the “flick”?
I’m no expert, but I reckon that these are some of the questions that will be asked and I think it’s fair to ask them. And Lote’s exorbitantly priced team will ask them, in spades, and more!
The media must be salivating over this, which is ironic when you consider that the problem is one that they created. It’s almost like the media has found the way to create perpetual motion.
Create the problem then report on it ad nauseum.
In these troubled times (the “GFC”), how many industries would love to be able to create a market and then exploit it to a hungry audience that they conditioned in the first place? Pure genius!
Lote, on a personal note, I wish you all the best. You might be a bit of a tearaway, but that is what rugby people understand and may imitate or fantasise about.
On a professional note, I hope that you push this to the limit and get some sanity back into the way that football players are treated. Yes, it’s true that dickheads need to be sanctioned, but not every footy player is a dickhead.
Of course, the irony in all of this is that you and the ARU will end up paying the legal costs and the press, as usual, will come out of it smelling of roses.
However, we all know that the best roses are grown in the smelliest manure.
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(27)
MarkH said | July 3rd 2009 @ 9:33am | Report comment
I think too many people are jumping at the ARU for his sacking. The ARU wouldnt put themselves in a position that would allow them to have been compromised. The investigation and a contract review would have been conducted simultaniously. If he has signed a contract that has clauses regarding behaviour, he hasnt a leg to stand on. If Lote has, in fact, made a poor decision once again and alcohol was a contributing factor, he will not win the fight in court.
He was given a pretty clear warning back in 2007 about standards of player behaviour and ARU requirements. That was something that both Sailor and Rogers had difficulty with. No matter what code you support. Grog will continue to kill careers.
The Link said | July 3rd 2009 @ 9:53am | Report comment
Mark H – there are general common law principles of fairness that you cannot contract away, just because its in a contract doesn’t mean its sacrosanct. The irony of Rugby in relying on contractual terms in a player dispute, when wilfully disregarding them re SBW is staggering.
What did Rogers’ issue with player behaviour? From what I can see there was something in 2004, but hardly something he had ‘difficulty’ with
True Tah said | July 3rd 2009 @ 10:05am | Report comment
The Link
it is not fair to use SBW’s situation as an analogy in this situation, it was in a foreign country with a differant set of laws for contracts. In SBW’s situation, rugby did not “willfully disregard” contractual terms, it was the player himself.
In any event, JON is a lawyer himself, and Im pretty sure that the ARU has a pretty strong case to do what it did, the reason why it hasnt announced the reason for sacking him may be in Lote’s best interests???
Virgil said | July 3rd 2009 @ 10:06am | Report comment
MarkH, this is not about alcohol or misbehaviour. This is about an organisation trying to fire an employee by looking for a loophole in the contract that they signed him up to – and the quickest way of doing that is holding up the player code of conduct and enforcing it to the nth degree. This ridiculous code of conduct was forced on sports organisations by the endless hype of a slavish group of newspaper editors and tv news execs. Grog is not killing careers, the media is.
True Tah said | July 3rd 2009 @ 10:11am | Report comment
Virgil
there has been no mention of alcohol or any other misbehaviour as the reason for Lote’s sacking – it may be best to wait and see what happens.
Who Needs Melon said | July 3rd 2009 @ 12:21pm | Report comment
I find it interesting when people blame “the media” for problems. Especially when they do it via “the media”.
The media, like most things, respond to supply and demand. The reason the media focus on reporting something is because they know people want to know it. If a media organisation is producing news no-one cares about, it will go out of business.
If anyone (besides Lote and the ARU) is responsible for Lote being sacked (and for the general desire that sportspeople be holier than the rest of us), it’s not the media for reporting various stories, it is the people who love to read these stories… BUT I’m NOT having a go at the majority of the public who like to read these things. People are entitled to their opinions. I know the media can shape opinions as well as reflect them but it seems the majority would prefer our sportsmen not to be gangbanging, involved in assaults, boozing to the point of interfering with training or even getting involved in foodfights. So I guess the majority are “mums”, “choir boys and violin players”.
I’m well aware that things have not always been as they are. That in ages gone by players could get up to all sorts of things and no-one was the wiser. And sometimes journalists WERE aware of incidents and didn’t report them (for various reasons). But society has moved on from these times. We are now dominated by (in your words) “mums”, “choir boys and violin players”. The codes of conduct do NOT appear ridiculous to these people. And this majority rules.
I do NOT feel sorry for the players having to comply with the current codes of conduct. The players these days get paid a LOT more than they did in the by-gone era I mentioned. They are incredibly well paid relative to the rest of society but with the pay packet comes some conditions that the rest of society may not be subject to.
So I respect what Lote has done for Australian rugby. I have no personal animosity towards him at all and I wish him all the best. But if he has breached conditions imposed upon him and repeatedly infringed and has to earn perhaps a slightly lesser fortune in League or elsewhere, I’m not going to shed too many tears.
Jameswm said | July 3rd 2009 @ 12:45pm | Report comment
Link – bringing SBW into the Lote debate is a huuuuge stretch. Rugby in fact did nothing legally wrong in the SBW case, so you should be arguing that by relying on the contract now, rugby is being consistent.
However, you can’t generalise in relation to an entire sport. On the one hand you are talking about Toulon rugby, and on the other the ARU. They are oceans apart.
Virgil – I love how you sit there lecturing us all when you don’t actually know what happened. And assuming the ARU used a loophole to get rid of an employee – normally they say people judge others by their own standards.
reds fan said | July 3rd 2009 @ 1:07pm | Report comment
Who Needs Melon – further to your points, the players also AGREE to teh code of conduct when they sign the contract.
If I was away on a work conference and bill showed up at work for an extra cleaning bill that resulted from a food fight…. i’d be in some trouble. And rightly so! And if was at that same conference and my boss was there, and he saw drunk and out of line at the evening function… i’d be in some trouble.
Some of this stuff is basic workplace behaviour. Rugby is no longer an amateur sport where guys give up there personal time to participate. If you’re paid by the piper, you dance to his tune!
Lets face it. Lote is too ashamed of his breach to make it public. Enough said I reckon.
MikeN said | July 3rd 2009 @ 2:23pm | Report comment
The more you get paid, the higher the expectations will be and the bigger the fall if you do not live up to those expectations. In professional sport, those ecxpectations are both on and off the field. You sign a huge deal and you put a target on your back, that is reality, that is business, and rugby is now a buisiness.
If Lote had greater expectations placed on him, he was being paid at an appropriately higher rate. If he cannot live up to those exectations, whatever they were, then he needed to be cut free. He needs to be big enough to realise that. His play was not up to expectation and I have no idea what the trigger was, but he did have form in not adhering to the conduct expected of him.
Lote. you had a responsibility to earn that money both on and off the field. If you can prove in a court of law that you were living up to those expectations, you deserve to win and reap the financial rewards, if not just walk away quitely.
Until the courts decide, I have had enough of this. He wasn’t playing well enough so was not going to feature in the comming games, so this come down to a contract dispute that does not concern me. I’m out of here.
The Link said | July 3rd 2009 @ 2:23pm | Report comment
A bit of revisionism here gents, Toulon knew SBW was on contract and were an active agent in getting him to break that contract. The IRB knew SBW was on contract and did not recognise it. My point is either you rely on contracts or you don’t
Jameswm – you ignore the overt bragging of the Rugby fraternity that the ‘game’ snatched SBW and will get League’s finest. Peter Fitzsomons does it on a regular basis, as do many bloggers here. There is no demarcation between Rugby and the ARU by Rugby’s own fans.
stuff happens said | July 3rd 2009 @ 2:46pm | Report comment
OK here’s my Lote story. A few years ago my son attended one of those training camp weekends at the Sports Institute at Narrabeen in Sydney.Excited 11/12 year olds and it was football ( soccer). On the second day who should they spy but the Waratahs looking beat up returning from a training session. Boys waving hands and shouting – you can imagine.
Who was the one player to come over to the boys and talk to them. Yep, Lote. They loved it, he was great to them and I suggest you’ll find that kids generally think he’s a legend.
As I mentioned on another blog it’s the job of managers/ coaches to manage stars even though they may have inflated egos & bank balances.It’s their job to make the most of the stars potential and it’s not easy. Alec Ferguson at ManU is a past master at this. The ARU generally has failed to do this with Lote.I agree with Campo this morning that Lote’s full potential was never realised in rugby. I think he’s become bored and needed another challenge.It’s tragic that Deans couldn’t rise to this challenge, partly because I suspect JON never wanted Lote around anyway.
So all the best to you Lote, keep the faith and I hope this setback will spur you on to greater things.Don’t give up .
DannoW said | July 3rd 2009 @ 3:21pm | Report comment
The thing that annoys me about all this is why are sports stars the ones who have to justify their behaviour?
Why are they the ones who get on the front pages when sex, drugs and drink are involved?
The only reason is profile.
If it was Adam Ashley-Cooper who got got drunk on a night out bugger all people would recognise who he is and there would be no issue for him to deal with. Because it is Lote everyone knows who it is, so any misdemeanor is bought to the wider publics attention.
Why is sport held up to this high standard? Plenty of people see artists, actors, and musicians as role models, yet anything they do in regards to sex drugs and drink is seen to fuel their artistic endevours and deemed as acceptable.
Great musicians like Nick Cave have had long term drug addictions and no one has said we should ban buying his records, Do people really think rock & roll bands have not participated in group sex with their groupies? No one has said ban the Rolling Stones, nor torn up their recording contracts.
Why do we expect so much more from our athletes?
TommyM said | July 3rd 2009 @ 3:43pm | Report comment
Danno. Completely agree with everything you’ve said. My reckoning is that Mums and Dads WANT their kids to play sports and idolise its stars (and hopefully become stars themelves?), thus expect them to be squeaky clean. They don’t want their kids to idolise rock musicians and don’t push them into emulating their brand of success, and thus are less concerned with their antics. But I absolutely agree that it’s bizarre the way in which sports people are expected to be pillars of society just because they happen to be good at kicking or throwing a ball…
AndyS said | July 3rd 2009 @ 3:49pm | Report comment
Perhaps as you say, great musicians – by definition, unique voices and irreplaceable. If it were some manufactured plastic pop star playing up, the managers would probably just replace them. That is the world the sports star lives in – there is always someone just waiting for the chance. Again, the truly irreplaceable (say a Best or Ruth at their peak) get transgressions overlooked, but the end always comes.
Take another look at the paper. It is full of sex, drugs and drink – who did it, what they did then, who got hurt etc. I guess folk hope for better from their heroes, and the entertainment business tries to give it to them and the media feel compelled to make a story of every time they fail.
As to the contract (and contracts in general), they are not indentured slavery agreements or bills of sale – they are agreements withing defined bounds as outlined. If an employee breaks a condition of the contract, the employer can sack him. What neither party can do is just break the contract without cause (as in the SBW case) without penalty, so I guess Lote will have to demonstrate that the ARU had no cause.
DiCanio said | July 3rd 2009 @ 3:50pm | Report comment
Rock stars generally dont endorse wholesome family products or participate in training camps with kids
If your childs music teacher was a drug fiend would that bother you?
Who Needs Melon said | July 3rd 2009 @ 3:59pm | Report comment
stuff happens,
You make a good response to people like myself and make me realise perhaps I’m being a bit finicky about the breach of contract. We’re beset with flawed heroes in this country, aren’t we – from the Johns brothers, Warnie, etc. – and I guess that’s your point – everybody is human. I guess it depends on what he’s done. If it’s just a foodfight, I’ll flip around and side with all those calling foul on the ARU.
PS. Did the fact that you were agreeing with Campo make you shudder a little bit? Always does with me.
Nird99 said | July 3rd 2009 @ 6:45pm | Report comment
RedsFan, Could not agree with you more.
I am a teacher and it does not matter if I am at school, at the shops or at the pub I am always a teacher. I need to conduct myself in such a way that befits the position I have been given. Like it or not I am known by literally hundreds (maybe thousands) of people know me in my local area and I cannot get away with any conduct that is poor, and would likely be sacked if I brought the school or the department into disrepute.
Kevin Rudd is the Prime Minister and not matter where he is he is the prime minister, like it or not and he also needs to conduct himself in a way that befits the position he has been given.
Any sports star is paid the money they are paid because of the public interest in them. Whether it is Lote or a Super 14 player of no real name, if they break the contract they need to be held accountible. They need not to be held to any different levels of scrutiny to any other person that holds (whether they like it or not) a position of responsibility, but they should also not be given free rein to do what they like when they like.
I am not commenting on the Lote incident specifically because i do not know the circumstances. The amount of speculation about what has happened and the amount of people taking sides with the either the ARU or Lote is alarming. We dont know what happened and we should hold our views on the issues until we know the actual issues!!!!!
spelling please said | August 24th 2009 @ 8:48pm | Report comment
You would think that a teacher could spell accountable correctly!
Next year! said | July 3rd 2009 @ 7:01pm | Report comment
Ask yourself …………if you were given a couple of million $ until 2011 and the agreement was you would do your best at your profession and stay out of trouble in public what would you do ?
Not a real difficult template to follow is it ?
stuff happens said | July 3rd 2009 @ 7:17pm | Report comment
Who needs Melon
thanks and yes re Campo!
What administrators like JON tend to forget is that the players and the punters are the game; not the bean counters (vital as they are). And yes you need rules , everyone does, but be careful you don’t damage the game more by retribution than it ever was by the player’s behaviour.Lote will be remembered in rugby long after JON has been forgotten.
We have the bizarre situation where Schalk Burger gets eight weeks for gouging someone’s eyes and then can play test rugby while Lote Tuqiri has been sacked altogether by the ARU for bad behaviour (which we know doesn’t warrant the police involved).
I hope he finds another challenge, gets himself really fit again and blasts his detractors at the ARU off the pitch.Maybe he could play for FIji in RWC’11 since the ARU don’t want him?!
Cutter said | July 3rd 2009 @ 7:34pm | Report comment
Musicians make their money by selling music. Rugby makes its money, in large part, through sponsorship and endorsements. If rugby players had the reputations of rock musicians do you think breakfast cereals, sports drinks etc would want to sponsor them?
That is a very good story about Lote at the rugby camp. Good on him.
Is he playing for West Harbour this weekend?
MarkH said | July 4th 2009 @ 5:32am | Report comment
The point is, if you are given your left and rights of how to behave. You do it. This guy failed. So, who does know what he did? have we got insiders or is everyone just speculating? The ARU would not put themselves in a position that may compromise their position. The lawyers would have scanned the contract, look at the incident and given their opinion. They arnt that stupid.
MarkH said | July 4th 2009 @ 5:36am | Report comment
Link- Rodgers was well known to be an alco. Ask the bouncers in Cronulla. I’ll stand by the quote I made. Grog kills sports careers. An employer has every right to give an employee a code of conduct. The ARU had nothing to do with SBW…where did you get that?
bennalong said | July 5th 2009 @ 7:45pm | Report comment
MarkH,
Two lines have opened up here. One is frought because we don’t know what Lote is supposed to have done, but we’re getting the picture of an OK sort of guy who talks to kids and puts in at training despite having missed out on team selection.
The other relates to what we expect of sportsmen.
I watch Rugby because I played Rugby and my kids play/ed rugby. I think Rugby is a life lesson. It demands commitment to the team and the coach.
People on your side of the ledger say if you get paid heaps then you have to obey the rules. Generally I think that’s got merits but who decides?
The last people you should give that right to are those in the media.
Generally in sporting teams it’s the coach first because he’s the judge of what effects the team.
If a player is judged to have brought discredit on the game, then the executive have a duty to intervene. BUT………………..
when the media starts finding dirt for their gossip sheets that in more respectful times would not have made it into print, do you dump your players for fear of your sponsors reaction or do you stand up for them like a family would?
Rugby is a game, and a great game, and I don’t want the players treating it as a job. I want them first and foremost playing for their team, their club, their state, & their country . The higher up the ladder the more I expect, but these guys are not teachers, Nird99, or business reps or politicians ……….they play body contact sport. They have short careers often punctuated by injury. some suffer later in life.
Most sane people are happy to see them as examples by their all out effort on the field and their sportsmanship in accepting the refs decision (usually) and shaking hands at the games end.
If you’re one of the people who read the gossip rags and fall for the bullshit expectations they create then I doubt you are or were a sportsman. Testosterone and physical contest are a potent mix and many a reputation suffers when, in letting off steam, you add alcohol.
It doesn’t mean you let them off. But you don’t fire them if you have other punishments available. And you don’t throw them to the wolves.
westy said | July 5th 2009 @ 9:47pm | Report comment
Thankyou Bennelong. Mark H be a little slower in judgement. I do not think your statement about Rodgers is neither necessary fair or needed. The bouncers at Cronulla indeed Treasury officials are noy always the best source of advice.
Care should be taken in making the media your conscience they blow hot and cold.
If the ARU officially or unofficially leaked that they are close to tearing up another unnamed players contract then this is conduct that falls below my expectation of natural justice.
eric said | July 6th 2009 @ 4:44pm | Report comment
My bet is the incident involved a woman back at the hotel around the Italy game. Insignificant to all of us, maybe significant to the Tuqiri family, but obviously in breach of the code of conduct for a bloke on his last last warning. If Lote goes to court there will be some very dirty laundry getting aired. So, I see no winners, bad look for rugby, excessive punishment for Lote, disgruntled friends and fans, and ammo for the league/union divide.
I blame Flowers for signing him up to that exorbitant fee, while he was flirting with Souths, pushing his team mates around etc, and not scoring tries.
True Tah said | July 6th 2009 @ 4:51pm | Report comment
eric
if that was the case, then it does explain the ARU’s silence on the matter, they have said they have kept quiet because of lote’s interests.
The only ones who are going to benefit from this are Lote’s SC and instructing solicitor, I cant see JON doing something reckless without knowing its a sure thing.