Warriors bidders fall out
Auckland Rugby League chairman Cameron McGregor has hit back at accusations made by rival Warriors bidder Richard Fale that his organisation stole intellectual property.
In an interview with Radio Live host Wendyl Nissen, the Hawaiian politician, who was briefly in negotiations with the ARL for a joint bid for the Warriors, said ARL Rugby League stole his group’s ideas, then launched a new rival bid.
Fale and ARL are both trying to buy the club from Eric Watson and it is believed there is one other bidder, with the price tag over $20 million.
Fale said the two groups first engaged after the ARL initial bid for the Warriors had fallen apart.
‘‘We decided that if we were going to enter the bidding process, we understood that for the success of not only our bid, but the game as a whole, we needed some core, solid partners in New Zealand,’’ he told Radio Live.
‘‘So we had a talk to Auckland Rugby League about possibly joining together and figuring out what could be done to make that relationship work.
‘‘We initially thought it was starting well, but then it seemed that they weren’t interested in partnering, they were more interested in dominating the discussion and acquisition.
‘‘We had a confidentiality agreement that they violated and we find ourselves in a situation where they’ve re-entered the bidding and it seems to us that they’ve taken information that we have shared with them and used that to put together a new bid to re-enter the race for the Warriors.
‘‘We were really looking forward to bringing them on board,’’ he added.
‘‘It seems unfortunate now but their receptiveness to the idea was only so they could extract information from us, to use for this purpose that they secretly withheld from us.’’ Fale said they had considered taking legal action against the ARL, but didn’t feel it was right to take money out of the game in Auckland, by suing the organisation.
However, McGregor’s version of events is drastically different and he insists they didn’t need to take any ideas from Fale’s group, didn’t break the confidentiality agreement and realised early on in negotiations that a partnership wouldn’t work between them.
‘‘Having done due diligence before Richard Fale entered, we had all the details we needed to make a decision early on,’’ McGregor told Stuff.
‘‘All we had is a conversation; beyond the non disclosure agreement, there’s been nothing formal entered into.
‘‘We agreed that we both wanted different things for the club. Richard Fale wanted control of the club, rather than a 50/50 agreement. Hence nothing came of it.’’
Fale said his group will know in the next couple of weeks if they’re likely to take over the club and he has made statements that he’d like to take Warriors games to America if he’s successful.
ARL, whose bid is through the Carlaw Heritage Trust, admits it can’t match the price others could be willing to pay for the Warriors, but its bid is based around revitalising league in Auckland and New Zealand and it plans to start a semi-professional competition off the back of it.
Early on, at around the time Auckland businessman Paul Davys was looking to buy the club, ARL had discussions with the Waipareira Trust to put in a joint bid.
The Warriors ownership entered into an exclusivity agreement with ARL over the sale of the NRL club, but when the Waipareira Trust pulled out and the ARL couldn’t find another party to work with, it pulled out of that agreement. Subsequently, the ARL decided it still wanted ownership of the Warriors to be at the forefront of its plans for growing the game and re-entered the battle.