The monsters hunting Folau

Israel Folau during a Waratahs Super Rugby training session in May. Picture: Getty

It was William Shakespeare in King Lear who mused that “Humanity must perforce prey on itself like monsters of the deep”.

It seems that it’s not sufficient for Rugby Australia to have alienated, humiliated, prosecuted and punished Israel Folau. But now its paid servants, disturbingly, are joining in the tribal hunt to bring down one of their own.

How extraordinary that the Wallaby halfback Nick Phipps should claim that Folau has ruined the Rugby season for NSW Waratahs.

Why not admit that without Folau, the Waratahs are a very average side? His try-scoring has been greatly missed.

Without him, they’re a team lacking teeth; and now they have players jumping ship everywhere, which doesn’t happen to a winning outfit.

And it’s the same with the Wallabies: great players in their prime more than happy to turn their back on the Wallaby jumper.

People only vote with their feet only when the joint stinks. And I’m sorry, under the leadership of Cameron Clyne and Raelene Castle, that’s where we are.

Crowds are down by more than 25 per cent in 12 months. Viewing audiences are down by a similar amount. The game is in free fall. Rugby Australia have sold out.

The Australian team is now rightly called the Qantas Wallabies and Alan Joyce seems the proxy CEO of Rugby Australia, as well as the CEO of Qantas. It seems for $4 million a year, you can control the board of Rugby Australia.

And then you have this fellow Rod Kafer, quite an imaginative player in his day but a failed coach. He’s lived up to the Shakespeare dictum and weighed into the Folau affair.

And during a telecast of the Melbourne Rebels being smashed 66-0 last weekend, he told Folau to walk away from the game and forfeit the money owed to him by Rugby Australia.

This is a bit rich coming from a bloke who’s had his nose in two nosebags.

I’ve written before how Kafer was, until recently, in charge of coaching in this country.

When he was himself, briefly, a failed coach, he was also on the payroll of Rugby Australia; and at the same time doing TV commentary with Fox Sports. How objective could that be? Sycophants have surely never been so well-paid.

Kafer’s legacy at Rugby Australia is shambolic. Three of our four Super Rugby coaches are not Australian. All of them are rookies, so there’s no apparent successor to Michael Cheika.

He must have convinced the board of Rugby Australia that Cheika needed a selection panel and a boss; so they brought in Scott Johnson, who has won nothing of significance as a player or as a coach with Wales or as the director of rugby in Scotland.

Why would Cheika listen to Johnson, who has a reputation of being all show but no go.

But I digress.

We hear the expression often that so-and-so is a dud. How else could you describe the invisible chairman of Rugby Australia. Has he uttered a single word on the Folau affair? Surely a dud.

We know the CEO is a dud. The former head of coaching, Kafer, is a dud. Is this why Rugby Australia, to use a colloquialism, is at the bottom of the birdcage?

Week after week, thousands of people read what I have written about the current fiasco. On my column last week there were 906 comments. And only subscribers can comment.

On my Facebook page, the column reached 36,000 people. Another 535 comments.

On this newspaper’s Facebook page, another 346 comments. People are angry and they have every right to be angry.

Why would David write: “I understand that Israel Folau’s now infamous tweet mentioned more than homosexuality. Is it to be taken from the response by his employers that focused exclusively on the homosexual angle that the employer is OK with the others he mentioned who would go to hell? By singling out homosexuality, are they not guilty of something akin to reverse homophobia … I don’t agree with Israel’s views. Then again I don’t believe in hell. I do understand that a number of people with certain religious views may have a similar opinion to Israel. In my mind, while it may be disagreeable to me, it is OK that they have this view.

“And if they choose to enunciate it politely, that’s part of democracy and the price we pay for democracy is having to hear observations that we may not find palatable”.

Josh wrote: “Out of curiosity, I had a look at Israel Folau’s Instagram page. There is not one reference to or about rugby union, Waratahs, the upcoming World Cup, rugby union management, sponsors et cetera. It is strictly his personal things on the social media account and nothing to do with his employment or profession. So how can this be used against him?”

Robert: “This entire saga stinks of political correctness. Mark Latham’s comment on Qantas says it all. Shame on the board. It’s OK to bash women, take drugs and brawl in nightclubs. Quote from the Bible and you’re ‘banned’ …”.

Jeffrey: “When the sponsor seeks to influence a client, the client needs to look elsewhere.”

Remember, as I wrote last week, within 24 hours of Folau posting his Biblical comments on social media, Castle, as she told the later convened tribunal, was advising Qantas: “I called Ms Hudson from Qantas. I updated her on the situation (remember, this is barely a day after the post and the player’s goose is cooked) and told her that, confidentially, Rugby AU would be working towards a process to terminate Mr Folau’s contract and that Ms Hudson can share that position with Qantas chief executive Mr Alan Joyce. Ms Hudson texted me later that day saying that she’d only shared the update with Mr Joyce and he was appreciative of the transparency and he said that a speedy resolution by Rugby AU was paramount.”

As I said, this is Qantas calling the shots. The tribunal hadn’t even met. Due process had not occurred.

But the CEO is telling the sponsor that they’re going to “terminate Mr Folau’s contract”.

No wonder Peter says: “This whole affair is a puzzle: (1) RA is confronted with a politically incorrect social media post. (2) Sponsors suggest they don’t like the post. (3) RA takes disproportionate disciplinary action against the offender without mediation. (4) RA decides to commit a significant amount of their funding to protect their decision. I fail to understand why RA’s management has let such a minor problem escalate to such a level that could possibly put RA’s financial future at risk.”

Big Roy: “If only the Wallabies could play good football then we’d have plenty of sponsors queued up and a different board running the show. What a joke. RA will go broke.”

David wrote to me: “It’s interesting to compare the treatment of Smith/Warner/Bancroft for cheating (and I think their punishment was too harsh given the precedents of other nations and the ICC punishment given they’re supposed to be the governing body) versus this expression of a man’s beliefs. That we would do so to our best player on the eve of the World Cup beggars belief … I could rail against the recent phenomenon of multiple CEOs being the moral compass for this country.”

Well, where to from here?

In the light of the utter intransigence bordering on insolence of rugby administration, Folau has commenced action under section 772 of the Fair Work Act of 2009 pleading illegal dismissal.

Rugby Australia must now prove that their stipulation that their employee, Folau, not post his beliefs and/or excerpts of the scriptures pertaining to his religion is “an inherent requirement of the particular position of Folau as an employee” footballer of Rugby Australia.

It would appear that Rugby Australia must now prove that it was “an inherent requirement” of Folau’s footballer employment that Rugby Australia have the right to suppress Folau’s right of religious free speech and publication of his beliefs via Bible extracts about sinners going to hell.

As one very astute legal mind, Jim, has offered to me: “To be successful in proving this, I believe that RA will have to prove that it had a duty or obligation of some kind, credible to the court, to regulate the discomfort some people might feel on reading the content of Folau’s Facebook page.”

Rugby followers whose clubs are strapped for cash, who get nothing from Rugby Australia, are now questioning how this massive expense can be justified hounding their best player out of the game.

At what point do lawyers, reportedly on $10,000 to $20,000 a day, tell the board of Rugby Australia: “You’d better sit down and sort this out because it’s increasingly clear that you’re going to have difficulty justifying the control of what any employee says, legally, outside the workplace.”

Then there are insurers. We read that Rugby Australia believe they’re insured for the prohibitive costs confronting them.

At what point does the insurer say: “By continuing to pursue this course of action in the face of legal opinion, you are invalidating the terms of your policy.”

Surely someone advising Rugby Australia is telling them to pull their heads in.

Find a table, sit around it and sort this out. But, if it goes to court, it will be interesting to see the detail of the Folau contract and the terms of the sponsorship agreement with Qantas.

It is impossible to believe that there would be provisions in a sponsorship agreement that would allow the sponsor to seek the termination of the contract of a player under these circumstances.

If Qantas has caused Rugby Australia to terminate the employment contract of Folau with no legal reason to do so, then it seems that the hole that Rugby Australia is digging for itself gets deeper and deeper.

And, hypothetically, if Folau is successful in his claim against Rugby Australia, what legal rights does Rugby Australia have in relation to Qantas?

One of the world’s most gifted players being humiliated, ostracised, attacked, condemned and punished over his religious beliefs.

In Hamlet, Shakespeare contemplates: “That it should come to this.”

The sentiments today of every rugby supporter.