NZ Rugby votes for Agustin
Frustrated chairman Brent Impey says New Zealand Rugby backed Agustin Pichot to replace Bill Beaumont at World Rugby because the organisation requires a major overhaul.
While it’s no surprise NZ Rugby elected to vote for former Argentina halfback Pichot ahead of Englishman Beaumont to be World Rugby chairman, the passion of Impey’s message after NZ Rugby’s annual meeting on Thursday made it clear he’s had his fill of the current regime.
Political Thinking
Asked whether it would be a missed opportunity if Pichot didn’t win the election Impey believed the game was being undermined if those in governance weren’t able to make change. “If you look back over many years, World Rugby has been very frustrating from a New Zealand perspective,’’ Impey said.
“And I think the straw that broke the camel’s back was the Nations Championship, which we were strongly in favour of.’’
Last year World Rugby was unable to advance plans to create a global season, and introduce the Nations Championship tournament, because influential northern countries wanted to protect their positions in the Six Nations.
Those unions weren’t open to a promotion-relegation format, which effectively killed off any hopes NZ Rugby had of entering the All Blacks in the tournament which would edged much closer to a global season and provided muchneeded extra income.
Impey said it became clear when the idea was first raised in Dublin that the Celtic nations and Italy were against the Nations Championship.
NZ Rugby wanted to help teams such as Japan and Fiji get more exposure, but were denied this chance when World Rugby was unable to launch the championship.
Standown Period
He ticked off a number of other areas of concern. World Rugby has dragged its heels on such issues as allowing players who had represented tier-one countries, such as former All Black Charles Piutau, to return to international rugby with tier-two teams following a reason stadown period.“That was the straw that said ‘this organisation needs major reform’,’’ Impey said. “I see both candidates (Pichot and Beaumont) have got a platform of governance reform and that is also overdue.’’ NZ Rugby, Impey believed, had made a concerted effort over the last “six or seven years’’ to represent the wider community by appointing females, Maori and Pasifika to governance roles.
It’s his belief that World Rugby, the organisation charged with running the game, has been too slow to react: “World Rugby just doesn’t simply represent anything like that.’’ Whether Pichot will have the numbers to turf out Beaumont won’t be known until May 12, and even if he wins the race there is no guarantee he will be able to force the established northern unions to give ground on important issues.
A familiar refrain in rugby circles since the Covid-19 pandemic forced all competitions to stop has been that this is an opportunity for the sport to reboot and NZ Rugby, which according to Impey is facing a loss of “tens of millions’’ in 2020 after declaring a loss of $7.4 million for 2019, wants change. NZ Rugby could be forced to sacrifice around $70 percent of revenue if no rugby is played this year but has cash reserves of $93 million.
Support
Impey is adamant NZ Rugby will survive this financial crisis. But he believes change at World Rugby is required.
“We have felt dissatisfaction over the lack of progress over the last few years, on a range of issues,’’ Impey emphasised. “While we have great respect for Bill Beaumont as an individual, this has become an issue where there has been a lot of self-protection from existing players (northern unions) vethose of us, particularly the Sanzaar nations, who want to see the game grow.