Rugby Australia sponsor Cadbury concerned by board coup as Harvey Norman departs

The new Rugby Australia chair did not ring major sponsor Cadbury until The Australian revealed Harvey Norman was walking away, following Hamish McLennan’s axing.

Newly-appointed Rugby Australia chair Daniel Herbert. Picture: Getty Images.

New Rugby Australia chairman Daniel Herbert did not ring major sponsor Cadbury until The Australian exclusively revealed Harvey Norman was walking away, following the bloody boardroom coup which ousted Hamish McLennan.

Rugby Australia’s relationship with Cadbury, the naming rights sponsor of the Wallabies, is now a concern for the embattled organisation.

The Australian has learnt it was several minutes after the story was broken that Herbert finally called a Cadbury powerbroker but they did not pick up.

It is understood Cadbury are deeply concerned by the recent events where a coup led by Queensland Rugby Union chair Brett Clark, backed by six member unions, slammed McLennan’s leadership and demanded he resign.

McLennan secured both the multimillion-dollar deals with Cadbury and Harvey Norman and had a longstanding relationship with key figures at both companies.

McLennan, before he left, was putting the final touches on a renewal but on Thursday Harvey Norman, who have contributed millions of dollars in sponsorship of the Super Rugby competition, confirmed it would not renew its existing deal.

“The Harvey Norman contract with Rugby Australia expires at the end of December, the decision has been taken not to renew,” a Harvey Norman company spokesperson said.

The departure of Harvey Norman, who it is understood had already invested $5 million in the code, is set to plunge the code into further financial turmoil.

Harvey’s Norman’s chief executive Katie Page told the Australian Financial Review on Thursday the decision was simply a case of “bad timing”. “(It has) nothing to do with Hamish,” she said. “The contract finishes in December. Unfortunate the timing.”

Former Wallabies captain Phil Kearns says the RA management was on “tenterhooks” following the Queensland led coup, masterminded by Clark, which has seen almost a week of chaos. There has been a calls for “culpable” board members to stand aside, with at least one board member, Pip Marlow, set to depart after next year’s AGM.

“The management will be on tenterhooks,” Kearns said.

“It’s a real pity that Harvey Norman has pulled out as a sponsor. They were valued highly by rugby. It will be interesting to see if other sponsors and television or broadcast providers stay in negotiation.”

Kearns labelled the treatment of McLennan poor.

“I think that the treatment of Hamish was poor given what he’s achieved, while he got the results the manner of getting those results may not always have been subtle,”

“But the intent and — except with the getting Eddie Jones as coach — the results have been strong.”

Notably Clark had refused to cede to RA’s commercial centralisation plans which in part triggered the move against McLennan. This is despite Rugby Australia previously financially rescuing the QRU between 2015 and 2017 with multimillion-dollar grants to keep the organisation afloat.

Three weeks ago Clark initiated formal plans with state member unions chairs to oust McLennan but admitted they had been discontented for “12-18 months” and the “final straw” was the Wallabies World Cup result.

In a press conference on Monday, Clark said that they’d “burn an effigy” of him “in the middle of Ballymore” before the QRU’s commercial assets were handed over to RA and said McLennan was not the right “cultural fit” for rugby.

“The chair at the time was not the person at the time who could effectively lead us into this next generation of rugby,” Clark said.

“It was never meant to be a personal attack at Hamish, it was just around his cultural fit, his value and some of his decision making.”

On Tuesday, The Australian revealed Clark, the ringleader of the coup, was deep in talks with Herbert just days before he successfully moved to oust McLennan.