All I'm saying is that I can understand why the board is acting the way they are. They have to trim tens of millions of dollars out of the budget or could be personally liable. They also want to be employable on other boards at the end of it.
The fees will only raise $5M though.
It needs to be very clear to people that this is not about bailing out the ARU - the money is being raised entirely from the community game, for the community game.
The problem we have, is that there is no transparency about what the community game actually means to the ARU or the States, there is no budget, planning, outcomes or accountability for the expenditure.
There has been no flagged review into the efficiencies of the current community rugby plan - it assumes that the existing model is good, and that if the professional game can't pay for it, then the community game must. And yet, many within community rugby believe the current model doesn't work - the only reason there hasn't been more push for change is because the people spending the money were also the people making the money - if the ARU and states choose to piss away their revenue, who am I to argue?
It treats rugby clubs as tax collectors, without any explanation of what those taxes will be used for. The plan has been developed outside the community rugby space and imposed on the people who actually run community rugby.
And on your note about the Directors looking to future employment prospects - it would shock me if that were behind any of the motivation for the actions of the board, and if it were, those members need to stand down from their positions. The stipend for the directors is measly, so its not like they need the money. If their worried about being tarnished by the ARU, they should leave.