Professional rugby is poison to the Pacific Islands
OPINION: Oceans Apart makes us face up to two truths about our game. Firstly, professional rugby is poison to the Pacific Islands. Secondly, no one has a clue what they are talking about.
The documentary about rugby on the Pacific Islands, made by the admirable Dan Leo, tells us how rugby players from the archipelago carry the weight of an entire people. Sombrely it highlights the realities and injustices of the game. Some stories are systemic, some are personal – all are compelling.
But one fact stands out: Money from rugby coming into the Islands is equal to 20 per cent of the Pacific Island GDP. It is a claim so astonishing that I requested clarification from Leo. I have yet to have a reply but none the less, I’m happy to take the claim on face value.
What does 20 per cent of GDP mean? In the UK, every bank, investment house and business that contributes to the financial services sector would only make up 7.8 per cent of GDP according to the House of Commons Library 2018. In other words, it is enormously important to the Pacific Islands.
A better comparison would be the petrostates: Russia, Venezuela, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia and so on. Their economies are dominated by natural resources (nine to 45 per cent according to OPEC). It would seem the Pacific Island nations have their own natural resource: sporting prowess.
On to a winner… @danleo82 has produced a must-see piece of work with Oceans Apart: Greed, Betrayal and Pacific Rugby ?
— RugbyPass (@RugbyPass) November 19, 2020
Far from being a story about players whisked away to serve a feudal lord in a foreign land, Pacific Island players are loved and cherished all over the world. They are well rewarded too, often among the best-paid athletes rugby has to offer.
Money flows into the islands from rugby. A player like Charles Piutau earns about 290 times the average Tongan salary and is one of the highest-paid players in England. Not only do players like him entertain and inspire generations of children, but they also support families, friends, relatives, and build entire communities.
For the most part, players get paid by their clubs exactly what they are worth and we have, according to the documentary itself, 300 million bits of evidence to prove this.
Yet it is fair to point out that discrimination still exists. Australia’s highest-paid player was erased from the sport because he upset white liberal sensibilities. Maybe Leo is correct – the colonial mindset has not disappeared, it’s simply changed its clothes.
On the face of it, rugby is a net positive for the islands. The money is good and the opportunities are limitless but, like an industrial fertiliser, rugby enhances the growth of its chosen crop while the run-off pollutes the nearby land and tributaries.
Economists frequently point out that having an abundance of natural resources, rather than leading to prosperity, leads to distortions in the economy and corruption. Oil pipelines are more lucrative than talent pipelines but they attract the same problems and behaviours. Before long, a network of player advisors, committee members and, in the Pacific Islands’ case – politicians, show up looking for a slice of wealth and status they never earned.
Transparency International is a non-governmental organisation that takes action to combat global corruption. To this end, they have built the Corruption Perceptions Index which scores nations out of 100. The lower the score the more corrupt.
They measure factors like: government accountability, access to information on public affairs and state capture by narrow vested interests. This last point is of particular interest, as Leo has mentioned in numerous interviews.
Of the countries mentioned before, the scores are as follows: Russia 28, Venezuela 18, Nigeria 27, Saudi Arabia 49. You would do well to find any member of OPEC that has a good system of government by western standards. Unfortunately, there is not even enough data to give the Pacific Islands a score, but I doubt they would fare much better.
The same mechanism that puts a dim-witted Saudi prince on the board at an oil refinery also ensures a thug casts the Fijian vote for the next chairman of World Rugby.
It’s not that the Pacific Island nations are anymore naturally corrupt than anyone else, they are just working to different incentives. When our political leaders leave office with their box of belongings, they take a short taxi ride to the City. In short, the extra fare to Twickenham is not worth it. But if rugby made up one-fifth of GDP in the UK, things might be different.
Now you start to realise how entrenched the problems are and why it’s unrealistic to expect World Rugby to deal with such corruption. Not that any of this is recognised by the well-intentioned rugby luminaries the documentary rolls out. The argument goes: “If only World Rugby would live up to its ‘values’ or spend an amount of money, this problem would be solved.”
This is certainly the view of journalist Stephen Jones, whose superficial take on the situation might generously be described as ill-informed. If he has a deeper comprehension of the underlying issues, he hides it well. But, in fairness, he isn’t alone.
There needs to be reforms and fairer distribution from the big unions, but trying to solve a problem that stems from money and power with more money and power is wrong-headed. If it was truly the case this was a money problem, World Rugby would have written a cheque long ago.
The loudest, most moralistic voices of the rugby commentariat make the horribly patronising and potentially racist assumption that because a nation is small or less prosperous then its politicians are somehow inferior. This could not be further from the truth. They might be self-interested, they might be corrupt and, in some cases, criminally so, but they are not incapable.
The Samoan Prime Minister, Tuilaepa Aiono Sailele Malielegaoi, worked for the European Economic Community (EU) and Coopers & Lybrand (PWC). He is an expert in world trade and has been in the Samoan parliament since 1980. He is also the chairman of Samoan rugby and has forgotten more about politics than the average World Rugby administrator is yet to learn.
Meanwhile, in Fiji, Frances Kean, the country’s ex-rugby chairman better known as navy commander Kean, escaped jail time and has reasonably strong political connections, as we will see later.
The idea of World Rugby administrators ordering Fiji to clean up their act or explaining to Samoa why sports governance and politics should be separate is laughable. They may as well book a meeting with the Saudis to convince them about the evils of global warming. It is a view so arrogant it could only be formulated by a certain type of western mindset.
Besides, who would World Rugby send, Brett Gosper? In fairness, Gosper is not a sport’s administrator by trade. He is an advertising executive – and a very good one by all accounts. It is perfectly reasonable to say he might be the ideal man to sell the inclusive “values” of rugby union to multinational brands trying to target key demographics.
Kean, on the other hand, beat a man to death with his hands, beat a murder rap and helped orchestrate a successful military coup to put his brother-in-law in power. Gosper better have one hell of an elevator pitch.
OUT NOW! Oceans Apart: Greed, Betrayal & Pacific Rugby?
Thanks in advance to everyone who watches, shares & gets alongside Pacific rugby as we strive for positive change.
#OceansApartFilm by Tusitala Films:@vimeo: https://t.co/Hjm3mFPYDY@Amazon: https://t.co/XJ2hJUq98V pic.twitter.com/slMhyMSIVZ
— Daniel Leo (@danleo82) November 16, 2020
Rugby to its credit, did rid itself of commander Kean, who was exposed as a goon and will now spend the foreseeable future in a Fijian correctional facility – albeit as commissioner of the Fiji Corrections Service.
It’s unclear what options are even valuable to World Rugby. Football, cricket and the IOC all have rules about separating the state from the sport’s national governing body. FIFA even suspended Nigeria from international competitions for government intervention. Cricket, too, had a scandal with USA Cricket but, as you can imagine, cricket might not make up 20 per cent of America’s GDP.
In both cases, the sporting governing body withheld money and/or banned the nations from international competition. With World Rugby already sensitive about the treatment of Pacific Island nations, the politics around a ban would be a disaster.
That leaves withholding money, but that is unlikely to make any difference because, as Leo pointed out, the money in PI rugby is not from central funding but from players sending money back home in the form of remittances.
It’s impossible to know what the total remittances from rugby are but in a paper on this topic from Massy University in 2014, they concluded there were about 870 professional athletes from the Pacific nations spanning the NFL, rugby league, netball and, of course, rugby union. The total remittances then accounted for around 20 per cent of GDP but the majority came from normal jobs like nurses working in Australia, for example.
According to them, sporting remittances in 2014 made up a much smaller (but still very significant) proportion of GDP than the documentary claims they do now. The average salary in rugby union was $130,000 NZD or £67,000 in 2014. The most reliable study since of player wages comes from the player agency Esportif who claim the average Premiership Rugby salary is more like £200,000 or $382,899 NZD.
Rupeni Caucaunibuca hopes the next generation will learn from his experiences if they want a good life after rugby. #FijiRugby #OceansApart pic.twitter.com/XvJ0SOoJUH
— RugbyPass (@RugbyPass) May 30, 2019
One thing that is certainly true, rugby players’ pay has rocketed since 2014. If the Oceans Apart claim is true, rugby remittances are now worth £300million across the three main PI nations and rugby’s monetary contribution to the islands since 2014 is ten to 20 times greater than 2014. That’s a funny type of exploitation.
This is not to justify the current state of affairs. It is to point out rugby’s power, wealth and influence in the Pacific Island nations are not at the gift of World Rugby shovelling more cash to the island unions. As for rugby’s back seat administrators, they are really going to need to decide what they want.
Do they want reform of the PI unions and accept the disproportionate measures that will need to be taken such as competition bans? Many of which will fly in the face of some aspects of PI culture and be resisted by sovereign governments? If so they are going to need to leave histrionics of “neo-colonialism” and “exploitation” to sixth form debating societies while the adults get on with the work.
“The food and everything else comes to you. You have got to clean your room as well so they bring a bag full of new bedsheets. You’re on your own really. It’s an experience”
– @nemani_nadolo issues update to @TheRugbyPod from France #AutumnNationsCuphttps://t.co/LTfUHK9Swt
— RugbyPass (@RugbyPass) November 24, 2020
Alternatively, rugby accepts the PI unions for what they are, hands over the votes and the money and empowers the sort of system that appoints men like Kean. If we choose this route, the words “rugby values” can never be uttered again.
If you look at Kean’s well-documented indiscretions and think about the impact a man like that would have had on various families and people, consider how much of that influence you want in our “inclusive game”.
The fact that 25 per cent of the world’s professional players are descended from this tiny population suggests there are very few barriers to playing professional rugby. Giving more power to place the PI unions between players and their paycheques is not what is meant when we call rugby “a game built on respect”.
If you want to help PI players, as so many claim, there are many more areas that could help a lot more. In short, if the PI nations want reforms, it must come from within. No amount of white saviour complex is going to persuade the political powers that be to relinquish control of the PI unions.
'They were backing me through that whole situation in terms of what happened at Worcester.'@SPiutau on @BristolBears , Pasifika players, his brother and that Worcester incident, with @heagneyl ??? https://t.co/fodTDPBGTo
— RugbyPass (@RugbyPass) November 22, 2020
Comments on RugbyPass
“South African franchises would be powerhouses if we had all our overseas based players back in situ. We would have the same unbeatable aura the Toulouses, Leinsters or Saracens of this world have had over the last decade or so.” Proof that Jake white does not understand the economics of the game in SA. Players earning abroad are not going to simply come back and represent the bulls. But they might if they have a springbok contract.
22 Go to commentsA lot of fans just joined in for the fun of it! We all admire O'Gara and what he has done for La Rochelle
3 Go to commentsThe RFU will find a way to mess this up as usual. My bet is there will be no promotion into the the Premiership, only relegation into National League One. Hopefully they won’t parachute failed clubs into the league at the expense of clubs who have battled for promotion.
2 Go to commentsWell that’s the contracts for RG and Jordie bought and paid for. Now, what are the chances we can persuade Antoine to hop over with all the extra dosh we’ll have from living at the Aviva & Croke next season…??? 🤑🤑🤑
3 Go to commentsWow, that’s incredible. Great for rugby.
3 Go to commentsYou probably read that parling is going to coach the wallaby lineout but if not before now you have.
14 Go to commentsIf someone like Leo Cullen was in O’Gara’s place I don’t hear Boo-ing. It’s not just that La Rochelle has hurt Leinster and O’Gara is their Irish boss. It’s the needle that he brings and the pantomime activity before the game around pretending that Munster were supporting LaRochelle just because O’Gara is from Cork. That’s dividing Irish provinces just to get an advantage for his French Team. He can F*ck right off with that. BOOOOO! (but not while someone is lying injured)
3 Go to commentsDid the highlanders party too hard before the game? They were the pits.
1 Go to commentsWhat a player! Not long until he’s in the England side, surely?
2 Go to commentsHe seems to have the same aura as Marcus Smith - by which I mean he’s consistently judged as if he’s several years younger than he actually is. Mngomezulu has played 24 times for the Stormers. When Pollard was his age he had played 24 times for South Africa! He has more time to develop, but he has also had time to do some developing already, and he hasn’t demonstrated nearly as much talent in that time as one would expect. If he is a generational talent, then it must be a pretty poor generation.
4 Go to commentsThe greatest Springbok coach of all time is entirely on the money. Rassie and Jacques have given the south african public a great few years, but the success of the springbok selection policy will need to be judged in light of what comes next. The poor condition that the provincial system is currently in doesn’t bode well for the next few years of international rugby, and the insane 2026 schedule that the Boks have lined up could also really harm both provincial and international consistency.
22 Go to commentsJake White is a brilliant coach and a master in the press. This is another masterclass in media relations and PR but its also a very narrow view with arguments that dont always hold water. White wants his team to win, he wants the best players in SA and wants his team competitive. You however have to face up to the reality of a poor exchange rate and big clubs with big budgets. SA Rugby cant compete and unless it can find more money SA players will keep leaving regardless of Springbok eligibility and this happened in 2015 - 2017. Also rugby is not cricket. Cricket has 3 formats and T20 cricket is where the money is at. When it comes to club vs country the IPL is king but that wont happen because the international calendar does not clash with the club calendar in rugby. So the argument about rugby going down the same path as cricket is really a non-starter
22 Go to commentsNZ rugby seem not to have learnt anything from professional rugby. Super rugby was dying and SA left before they died with the competition. SA rugby did a u turn on their approach to international players playing overseas and such players are now selected for Bok teams. As much as each country would love to retain their players playing in local competitions, this is the way the world is evolving my friends. Move with it or stay 20 years behind the times. One more thing. NZ rugby hierarchy think they are the big cheese. Take a more humble approach guys. You do not seem to have your players best interests at heart.
3 Go to commentsBeaches? In Cardiff? Where?
1 Go to commentsHe is right , the Crusaders will be a threat. Scott Barrett, ( particularly), Fergus Burke , Codie Taylor, ( from sabbatical) etc due back soon for the Crusaders. There are others like Zach Gallagher too. People can right the Crusaders off, Top 8 , here we come !!
1 Go to commentsWe will always struggle for money to match the other sides but the least the WRU can do is invest properly in Welsh rugby. Too much has been squandered on vanity projects like the hotel and roof walk amongst others which will never see a massive return. Hanging the 4 pro sides out to dry over the last decade is now coming back to bite the WRU financially as well as on the pitch. You reap what you sow.
1 Go to commentsWhat do you get if you cross a doctor with a fish? A plastic sturgeon
14 Go to commentsWhat happened to feleti Kaitu’u? Hasnt played in a while right?
1 Go to commentsGregor I just can’t agree with you. You are trying to find something that just isn’t there. Jordie Barrett has signed until 2028. By the end of that he would have spent probably 11-12 years on Super Rugby and you say he can’t possibly have one season playing somewhere else. It is absurd. What about this scenario, the NZR play hard ball and he decides to leave and play overseas. How would that affect the competition. There seems to be an agenda by certain journalists to push certain agendas and don’t like it when it’s not to their liking. I fully support the NZR on this. Gregor needs to get a life.
3 Go to commentsHope he stays as believe he can do a great job.
1 Go to comments