Rugby cops massive financial hit by cutting Force

This is the same organisation that was caught off guard and surprised when Cox exercise the option to sell the Rebels and told the senate equiry that the Rebels could have been axed. Their behaviour is not worthy of a governing body, everyone involved in this sorry saga must resign including the Chairman that has absolute zero integrity.

A lot spent on low performance and alickadoos. CS I have another gem for you I will put it up when a fresh article is posted.

Is that quote from an employee of the RA?

How interesting......but then it's only a newspaper article.........and in Perth. https://www.perthnow.com.au/sport/western-force/rugby-australia-aid-saved-the-melbourne-rebels-sealed-western-forces-fate-ng-b88806001z RA aid saved Rebels The Sunday Times - Perth - 15 Apr 2018 - NICK TAYLOR RUGBY Australia money helped clear the debt that saved the Melbourne Rebels and effectively signed the Western Force’s Super Rugby death warrant. The revelation comes after this week’s RA announcement of a $3.8m loss for 2017, citing the messy axing of the Force as one of the factors. Confidential documents obtained by The Sunday Times show the Australian Rugby Union — now RA — agreed to pay former Rebels owner, New Zealand businessman Andrew Cox, $300,000 and then-director Peter Sidwell $200,000. The money was then paid to the Rebels. The payments, contained in a Deed of Settlement Release, relate to “disputes” with the Rebels over RA’s threats to axe the Rebels and directs the money to the Melbournebased club. The documents also state two other directors Lyndsey Cattermole and Bob Dalziel “gift” the Rebels $250,000 each. The combined amounts effectively cleared the Rebels debt of $789,811 that allowed Cox to sell the club to the Victorian Rugby Union for $1 under a Put Option agreement, effectively spelling the end of the Force as the Rebels could then not be closed. The document says, among others, Cox and Sidwell “had suffered loss and damage as a result of statements alleged to have been made by or on behalf of the ARU on and from 10 April 2017”. On April 10, RA chairman Cameron Clyne said a decision on which team would be cut would be made after consultation with the Force and rebels. Four days later the Rebels issued a statement saying they “unequivocally” rejected that RA could “chop or cut” the club and had notified it of its intention to seek compensation. The deed of settlement says Cox and Sidwell: “. . . respectively direct that the respective payments to them be paid to MRRUPL for the purposes of MRRUPL satisfying the Debt Free Requirement and MRRUPL agrees that these payments will be used solely for this purpose”. It also says Cattermole and Dalziel promise to the ARU “. . . they have each gifted $250,000 to MRRUPL for the purpose of MRRUPL satisfying the Debt Free requirement and MRRUPL agrees that these gifted amounts will be solely for this purpose”. Cox used the put option and sold 11,625,000 Rebels shares to the VRU on August 4 for $1. RA and the Rebels did not respond to questions.

36 million to the Rebels just for the privilege of having a team in Melbourne!! ` I hope they have a worse loss this time around! I sincerely hope that in light of the disgraceful mess they created by axing the Force rather than the Rebels or the Brumbies, that they lose at least that number or worse, they deserve it!

Well said Mothy....

Finally Bill Pulver's $0.5 Million departure bonus gets some coverage.......... Now we know the inflation rate on 30 pieces of silver over 2,000 years! "Bill Pulver collected a $500,000 bonus on his way out the door at Rugby Australia after overseeing what many believe was the worst year on record for the code. Pulver took home the bonus on top of his $775,000 salary last year, but made a tax deductible donation of $200,000 to the Australian Rugby Foundation, of which he is a director. Fairfax Media understands it was the first time in three years that he took up the performance bonus to which he was entitled under his contract. The figures were not included in Rugby Australia's annual report released on Monday, but were listed in the reduced disclosure financial report RA lodged with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission." http://www.canberratimes.com.au/rugby-union/super-rugby/pulver-pockets-300k-bonus-as-castle-goes-outside-for-super-help-20180413-p4z9h7.html

These are not rugby people, they are an extension of NSW rugby with the aim to secure at much resources and players for NSW even if it means destroying rugby in WA. This is exaxtly what they did and they did it deliberately. They are not supporting WA Rugby even after they driven WA Rugby to bankruptcy. They still own the Force, WA Rugby brand that is useless for them and is leasing it to WA Rugby and refuse to agree a price so that WA can buy it back. WA will do well to put as much distance between ourself and Rugby Australia as possible and to charter our own future. I recommend that we even drop the Force brand and start over again.

The salaries are obscene

Bakkies & Co. Excerpts from Paul Cully in today's SMH.I always thought that RA was not making much "gross profit" from Super Rugby. If RA published decent segment information in their yearly financial accounts like allocating direct expenses to each source of income, we, the Rugby Public would be more informed. Here it is: "First, RA is a top-heavy organisation; second, it is dangerously addicted to broadcast revenue; third, it is locked into a Super Rugby competition that is beginning to look like a burden; and fourth, the grassroots is still living on crumbs. In fact, if you gave the money RA spends on Folau and Quade Cooper to community rugby, it would increase grassroots spending by more than 20 per cent, overnight. That stark difference between the top of the game and those at the bottom is a theme that repeats all the way through the Rugby Australia reports. Structurally, though, the most worrying aspect of RA’s finances are those that relate to Super Rugby, player costs and ‘‘corporate’’ expenditure versus the amount being brought in by broadcasting Take a deep breath. In 2017, RA spent $12m on ‘‘Super Rugby team costs’’, $27m on ‘‘Super Rugby funding’’ and $25m on ‘‘player payments and RUPA costs.’’ That’s a total of $64m. It gets worse. Much worse. RA also threw $1.3m to the ‘‘SANZAAR office,’’ spent another $8m on ‘‘High Performance and National Teams’’ and another $4m on ‘‘Marketing and Media’’. There’s more. Rugby Australia also spent $17m on ‘‘Corporate’’ costs, described in the RA report as ‘‘all costs associated with the administration, legal, compliance . . . of running the business.’’ In other words, executive salaries and the like. The amount given to ‘‘Community Rugby’’ was $3.7 million. A reminder at this stage that I am not aligned to club rugby in Sydney, never have been. In fact, I have been an avowed supporter of Super Rugby. But the game is at a crucial juncture in Australia and you cannot look away at these numb However, it’s total broadcast take – by far the No.1 source of revenue – only amounted to $61m.

Come on TWAS. The ARU spend more in their lifetime of the Tahs and Reds than anyone else because they existed longer. The rate at which the Rebels consume ARU funding is what has got the ARU in thie debacle.

The 960k came from Government grants for Community Rugby so they contributed sweet fa of their own money to it. Rugby WA only got 193k from the RA the same amount as SA.

Force salaries are covered on page 21 of the full report.

Speak for yourself Cameron.

'Try thinking of it this way; do you genuinely think these are bad guys, that want to destroy the growth of rugby in Perth? What possible motive could they have for that?' The RA went in and executed an Alliance Agreement with Rugby WA after the August 2016 meeting where they had released findings of what the various reports and utilised an argument that Force like deals were the way forward. They agreed at that meeting they agreed to cut a side and to meet again in October 2016 to decide which side to cut. The Force were the only option, it seems pretty clear to me.

Cameron having looked at the books your 'mob' spent half the money on Community Rugby last year than the previous year with $960,000. Maybe if you didn't waste so much money on the Rebels, re-branding, junkets, vanity projects, car park recruitment searches and covering your poor 'business' decisions you would have more to go to the grassroots.

'was commercial in confidence. Meaning that if they divulged those details, they would be liable for breach of their agreement with the Vic government. And that would just be shooting them selves in the foot twice with a state government (assuming things aren’t exactly tickety boo with the WA gov)' Irrelevant. Lies or commercial in confidence they had an obligation under their protection of rights to provide the details to the Senate Committee. They didn't do that, hence Senator Reynolds' recommendation to review the certain conduct of witnesses at the Inquiry. If you have nothing to hide do as you are asked. Pulver came with an attitude of hiding behind lies in confidence and got exposed.

'So if your issue is with disclosure, then you need to take it up with the administrating body of those standards.' Don't worry it already has.

So should O'Neill for creating this mess by bringing in the Rebels while cutting pathways and finances.

“Let’s avoid supporting my claim” I think you mean.