Israel Folau case will continue to rumble

One can only wonder how Tennis Australia might have dealt with Margaret Court were it not for the cautionary tale of Folau.

Israel Folau with his Maria after their dispute with Rugby Australia was settled Picture: Aaron Francis/The Australian

Rugby Australia let out a massive sigh of relief on Wednesday that the Israel Folau case finally had been settled, not because it necessarily feared its legal arguments would be torn asunder in the courts but simply because the game desperately needed closure and certainty on this issue.

Yet the tectonic shifts of this case will continue to rumble over the rugby landscape for years to come. And not just rugby. Every major Australian sport was caught short by Folau’s insistence that drunkards, liars, idolaters and, most of all, homosexuals, were destined for hell if they did not repent. Initially, none of them knew how to respond.

READ MORE: Castle should resign over Folau disaster, writes Janet Albrechtsen | Rugby chief calls for cool heads | Fast-track religious freedom, Israel urges | Where to now for Folau? | Marathon 12-hour Folau mediation talks | ‘Sorry’ rugby chiefs pay Israel Folau millions

Some sports, indeed, still are struggling to know how to deal with a major star being totally at odds with the inclusiveness they — and their sponsors — wish to project. One can only wonder how Tennis Australia might have responded to Margaret Court’s statements on gays if they had not had the cautionary tale of Israel Folau right there in front of them.

Margaret Court is announced to the crowd on day six of the Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Championships in 2016.

Whether RA made a smart decision in negotiating a settlement that will stop Folau from proceeding with his $14m lawsuit against them will only become apparent in the fullness of time. The devil, as they say, is in the detail but, for the moment, the confidentiality clause surrounding the deal is still holding strong. Inevitably, however, the truth will out.

An RA spokesman insisted there had been “a parting of the way” where Folau and the national body were concerned and that he would never again play rugby in this country. But even that may not hold true.

He can and possibly will seek to play overseas, in Britain or France or Japan. And with a major overhaul of the Rugby Australia board being prepared for the next annual meeting in April, who is to say that in the lead-up to the next World Cup in 2023, a revamped RA wouldn’t see fit to bring him back to Australia to play for the Wallabies?

He has played 73 Tests, which means he already has cleared the Giteau Law threshold by 13 Tests. And by the World Cup in France, he will be “only” 34, a year younger than Australia’s oldest player at this year’s tournament, Adam Ashley-Cooper. After all, if Sandpapergate’s two key villains, Steve Smith and David Warner, could emerge as heroes of the respective Ashes and Pakistan series, then surely redemption is open to all — which funnily enough was Folau’s message in the first place.

Raelene Castle, Chief Executive Officer of Rugby Australia. Picture: Sarah Matray

Conjecture such as this, of course, is wildly premature and presupposes that Raelene Castle, RA’s public face throughout this entire imbroglio, will have been moved on. Frankly, that is far from certain.

Of course, if it can be demonstrated that she paid over the odds to have this intricate mess go away — and anything more than $5m, the amount he would have been paid for the next four years, would seem excessive — then it could well be she might struggle to hold her critics at bay. Not that she would have taken this decision unilaterally. The entire RA board would have had to sign off on a settlement of this magnitude. Her job is, after all, to implement the will of the board.

She began her tenure at Rugby Australia with a traditional Aboriginal smoking ceremony, but at times it almost seemed that one thing after another — things over which she had little or no control — left her gasping for clear air. She inherited a nasty, angry mood right from the start, courtesy of the Western Force culling in which she has played no part.

Then, for the past year, she was faced with an almost uncontrollable Wallabies coach who demanded and was given virtually everything RA could afford. Indeed, if reports of Castle’s predecessor Bill Pulver negotiating a contract of $1.2m a year for Cheika are correct — that figure is more than twice what Ewen McKenzie was paid — then Castle must have found his failure to give ground doubly infuriating.

Former Wallabies coach Michael Chieka.

Still, Wednesday’s settlement comes on top of the failed bid for the women’s World Cup while Cheika delivered the worst men’s World Cup in Australian history — the Wallabies lost not one but two matches, to Wales and England.

Castle, moreover, still has to land the one prize that can guarantee her survival: a meaningful broadcast deal. Here again, she’s munching on a shit sandwich, having to try to squeeze more money out of broadcasters while having fewer Super Rugby games to sell.

There are reasons for Castle to believe that 2020 can be a happier time — a less combative Wallabies coach, a director of rugby who is pulling the right levers of player recruitment and retention, and a crop of players, based around the successful Australian under-20 and under-18 sides.

And what of Folau? Arguably he had strained his relationship with that mass of middle Australia which donated $750,000 through GoFundme and then $2.1m through the Australian Christian Lobby with his claims that God’s wrath showed through in the bushfires. And he strained credulity by factoring in lost income as a potential Wallabies captain in his $14m claim against RA. But by announcing that all those who had pledged funds to him would have their money repaid, he won them all back again.

Meanwhile, the legal test case that Folau represented has now evaporated with this negotiated settlement. Federal parliament is still set to proceed with Scott Morrison’s proposed legislation that will see a Folau clause inserted to prevent employers sacking workers for expressing their religious beliefs, but the fact is that Folau was on his second chance, having been warned officially last year that his views on homosexuals simply did not conform to those of RA.

If Folau found those standards unbearable, he could simply have walked away from the game — minus his $5m of course!

That battle now is for another day and perhaps another sport.

Over to you, Tennis Australia.