Margin Call: Rugby Australia boss Raelene Castle earning every cent amid Israel Folau furore

Rugby Australia chief executive Raelene Castle. Picture: Getty

It might be the game they play in heaven but Rugby Australia boss Raelene Castle couldn’t be embroiled in a more hellish scenario thanks to her code’s star Israel Folau.

The footballer has decided to fight Castle’s determination that he breached RA’s player code of conduct by making homophobic comments on his Instagram account.

All that means that Castle — who ran rugby league’s sometimes scandalous Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs before she took over at RA in January last year — is earning every cent of the $815,255-a-year the newly-released RA annual report reveals she was paid in her first year.

That was better than the $775,000 it appears her predecessor Bill Pulver was paid in 2017, his last year at the helm.

For the record, in the year to December 31, RA under Castle made a bottom line profit of $5.2 million profit from a $3.9 million loss the year before.

The code’s chair Cameron Clyne — the former NAB chief executive, who infamously promoted Rosemary Rogers to be his chief of staff — has predicted the code will make a loss this year due the forecast drop in broadcast and match day revenues thanks to the Rugby World Cup being held in Japan for six weeks from the end of September.

Businesswoman Ann Sherry — the NAB director overseeing the search for the bank’s next CEO — joined the RA board in mid-2012.

The RA annual report confirms that non-exec director Sherry, who is also chair of cruise ship company Carnival Australia, was to step down from the board at the code’s AGM meeting.

As this week unfolds, probably a good call — although records show the respected director is yet to officially take the jump.

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