Chip in to keep the bastards honest

The treatment of Shute Shield by Rugby Australia is emblematic of the problems in the game Picture: AAP

Our rugby leadership keeps talking about us bidding for, and winning, the Rugby World Cup in 2027. Mind you, so far no one else wants it. But, will we have a game by 2027?

Let me give you another metaphor of the problems about which the rugby family are kept in the dark.

You may remember when the ABC discontinued broadcasting the Shute Shield for financial reasons. Two young rugby “goers”, Nick Fordham and John Murray, took over the broadcast rights on a 10-year deal.

Fordham and Murray rebuilt the Shute Shield with broadcast deals across the Seven Network and Fox Sports. They gathered up sponsors and re-engaged the rugby audience.

They were so successful that in October 2019, Rugby Australia approached Fordham and Murray to buy back the rights to the Shute Shield. The hidden agenda was that RA wanted to sell a whole rugby package to Fox Sports.

Typical of a bumbling Rugby Australia administration, what should have been a simple negotiation took six months.

During that time, Fox Sports guaranteed funding for clubs and the showing of every club game live on Fox Sports.

Rugby Australia, in their usual “hairy-chested” way, stepped in and upped the money.

They also made guarantees to the Sydney Rugby Union to match everything Fox Sports had offered. Put simply, they bought out Fordham and Murray and took over. Are Rugby Australia broke?

Well, fast forward to today, June 2020.

Rugby Australia have allegedly faltered on the guaranteed payments to Fordham and Murray; they have alledgedly faltered on the payments to the Sydney Rugby Union, as I understand it, about $1.4m to the clubs; and while an agreement was struck to show one game a week plus finals on Seven Two, it does not match the Fox Sports offer.

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It has not built on the Fordham and Murray initiative, when we not only saw club rugby on TV, but the local grounds packed.

The Shute Shield became a statement of the untapped potential of our game. Now, the Shute Shield is headed in the same direction as all else rugby, down the tube?

And yet we are talking about a World Cup in 2027. Our urgent job is to make sure the game is not dead before then.

There is talk that in order to secure a trans-Tasman rugby competition, which I have advocated for a long time, Australia is offering New Zealanders the opportunity to co-host the 2027 tournament.

There is pie-in-the-sky talk that winning the rights to 2027 could set Australian Rugby up for the following decade. According to my calendar, we have seven years to get to 2027. I’d be worrying about these seven rather than the following 10.

Our rugby administrators seem to consistently ignore reality. The first reality is that, as we stand today, the Kiwis don’t think rugby crowds want to watch Australian rugby.

It is boring and our recent history shows us, too often, coming second on the scoreboard.

New Zealand are saying, why would we want to be bound to Australia when viewers only want to see quality?

This is a measure of the crisis. What is our answer to this crisis? Import Kiwi coaches. Do you get the drift here?

If these Kiwi coaches are coaching provincial sides in Australia which are not up to the mark, will the same Kiwi coaches start planting New Zealand players in our Super Rugby teams in order to make those teams competitive and, axiomatically, further weaken the game in Australia.

The public understand all this. The comments following my article last week were scarifying.

John said: “As a previous supporter who attended every Waratahs game in Sydney and every Wallaby Test in Sydney, and also travelled to other cities too, but who lost interest a couple of years back, these rule changes stolen from Rugby League … have driven me further away rather than brought me back. ‘Till later, RA.”

Andrew: “Rugby is gone as a professional sport in this country. They simply cannot compete, and the best we can offer is a shop window for the Northern Hemisphere of the blokes not good enough to be poached to play NRL.”

A bit of party politics might be instructive. In 1977, the former federal cabinet minister, Don Chipp, left the Liberal Party and launched The Australian Democrats.

His catchcry in the federal election, that same year, was to “keep the bastards honest”. He did that well, for over a decade.

His political party was founded on the principles of honesty, tolerance, compassion and direct democracy. Direct democracy gives people power to decide directly on policy issues.

Rugby Australia, wake up. Commit to constitutional reform and give the game’s supporters a say in how it is run.

Currently, as I have said often, the board of Australian rugby is a closed shop.

The chairman of the nominations committee, who is also the chairman of Australian rugby, essentially decides who is in the “closed shop” and who is not.

I have mentioned many times that in many successful sports’ organisations around the world, including FC Barcelona, and the Green Bay Packers, the supporters have a voice.

They pay a membership fee. They get certain rights which include priority in the issuing of tickets to big matches. This membership model provides a river of money for the clubs.

Do the maths. Do we have a million rugby supporters in this country? Do we have half a million?

Would they pay a piddling $100 in membership? If there were only 200,000, you’d have a tidy revenue stream of $20m. All these people would vote as to who was on the board.

They would also vote annually to throw them off the board. We desperately need a dose of honesty and direct democracy.

One of our problems is we are the sons and daughters of World Rugby.

Even Don Chipp would have his time cut out keeping those bastards honest.

Our great game is not owned by Rugby Australia or World Rugby. It belongs to diehard supporters like you. We can end the disillusionment.

We need a rugby version of Don Chipp. Where is he?