Lote, what happened mate?!
Roar Guru
By gatesy, 3 Jul 2009 gatesy is a Roar Guru
- Tagged:
- ARU, John ONeill, Lote Tuqiri, Rugby Union
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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- Explore:
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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.