The Expenditure Numbers
The Australian Accounting Standard AASB101 states “Financial statements shall present fairly the financial position, financial performance and cash flows of an entity. Fair presentation requires the faithful representation of the effects of transactions, other events and conditions in accordance with the definitions and recognition criteria for assets, liabilities, income and expenses …”.
Financial statements include the previous year’s results alongside the current year results so for example, in the case of the ARU’s 2012 financial statements the results can be compared to 2011. Clearly those currently running the ARU believed that when presenting the 2012 results the 2011 numbers previously published didn’t provide adequate disclosure for a fair comparison to be made against the 2012 results and decided to ‘restate’ the 2011 results to address that. As a consequence of the ‘restatement’ we can now see what the expenditure of the ARU really is.
The ARU previously disclosed that ‘Corporate’ expenditure in 2011 was $7.611 million. Last week it was disclosed that ‘Corporate’ expenditure in 2011 was actually $14.707 million – a 93% increase over that previously disclosed!
In 2012 ‘Corporate’ expenditure rose again to $16.911 million. I should point out that there has been no ‘restatement’ of the 2010 year or prior results so without further disclosure from the ARU we have to assess the financial performance of the ARU based on the published results and these confirm that ‘Corporate’ expenditure in 2012 was 95% higher than in 2010.
In 2012 the ARU used twelve categories to detail their expenditure and I’ve added a thirteenth:
- Wallabies Team Costs;
- National Sevens Teams Costs;
- High Performance & Other National teams;
- Super Rugby Grants;
- Player Payments & RUPA Costs;
- Matchday Operations;
- Commission & Servicing Costs;
- Marketing & Media;
- Super Rugby Team Costs;
- Community Rugby;
- Corporate;
- SANZAR Office Costs;
- Allocations To State Unions (This is not classified as an expense by ARU).
What could ‘Corporate’ expenditure include? There is no definition in the Australian Accounting Standards or detail in the ARU annual reports but I would expect that items of expenditure such as office rental, computer & equipment costs, directors’ fees, management and office staff costs, insurance, travel, stationery, telephone, utilities and the other costs of running an office would be included in this category.
