'You Couldn't Make it Up if You Tried'
Instalment #16
SANZAAR MAY SUE THE ARU
From Wayne Smith, The Australian, today
"The Australian Rugby Union could be damned if it does move to sack a Super Rugby team, and damned if it doesn’t, with SANZAAR potentially in line to sue the ARU if it does not deliver on the promises made at the crisis meeting in London in March.
SANZAAR emerged from that meeting with a clear understanding that its member nations would reduce the Super Rugby competition in 2018 from 18 teams to 15, with Australia promising to cut one of its five existing teams and South Africa two of its six franchises.
But sources have told The Weekend Australian that SANZAAR was caught completely unawares by the fact that the team the ARU had specifically targeted for the axe, the Western Force, had signed an agreement with the ARU last August that guaranteed there would be a Super Rugby team in Perth at least until the end of 2020.
The revelation that the Force may have a watertight legal case to stay alive now has SANZAAR official looking sceptically at ARU promises. Where the southern hemisphere joint venture organisation has confidence that South Africa has a fair and open process in place to drop down to four teams, there is a very real belief that the ARU is making it up as it goes.
But it also means that the ARU is now caught between a rock and a hard place …. either it drops the Force or the Melbourne Rebels, both of which have legal grounds for believing they are untouchable, or it abandons the process entirely, in which case SANZAAR could sue.
Certainly there would be a strong case to be argued that the ARU would be in breach of its agreement to help deliver a 15-strong competition if it now abandons the process.
As manoeuvring room narrows on all sides, ARU directors must seriously be asking themselves how they have been drawn into these turbulent waters by an apparent lack of due diligence by ARU management.
A week after the Melbourne Rebels released a media statement in which it said it denied the ARU the right to “cut or chop” the Rebels from the competition, the Western Force yesterday issued a similar press release.
In it the Force said the position of RugbyWA was clear. “Under the current arrangements, the Western Force is entitled to participate in the Super Rugby competition until December 30, 2020.
“There is no basis on which the ARU can purport to remove the Western Force from the competition. The ARU must work to ensure that the Western Force remains based in Perth for many seasons to come.
“Put simply, RugbyWA is not required to state a business (or any) case for the Force to remain in the competition.”
The Force have retained the former governor of Western Australia, Malcolm McCusker, to head their legal team, while Tim North, senior counsel, is well-placed to aid the Rebels given that he is president of the Victorian Rugby Union.
It is not known what, if any, legal advice the ARU has received but it is clear that management can expect to be subjected to a thorough grilling from its board in the very near future. In particular, they will be asked about assurances given to the SANZAAR meeting in London, and about why the Brumbies were removed from the endangered list.
The rumour is that the Brumbies were absolved from the process because they had a superior football program, but such things are cyclical. In recent times both Queensland and NSW could have claimed to have the best coaching program but on current indications, that no longer applies. It is fair to assume that the Brumbies eventually will strike hard times as well.
The only way out of this mess seems to be through negotiation, with the obvious merger candidates being the Melbourne Rebel — if owner Andrew Cox is prepared to talk — and the Brumbies.
But the ARU has backed itself into a corner and either humiliatingly backtracks to reinvolve the Brumbies in the process or face a perilous journey through the courts. Both courses are certain to anger directors."
