Folau’s contradictions may be of biblical proportions
Israel Folau may have to add his name to that list of people headed to hell. In dissecting Folau’s looming sacking by Rugby Australia last week, Wide World of Sports recalled a first-person column by the Wallabies superstar, written last year after his first harmful social media attack on LGBTIQ people.
‘‘After we’d all talked, I told Raelene [Castle] if she felt the situation had become untenable – that I was hurting Rugby Australia, its sponsors and the Australian rugby community to such a degree that things couldn’t be worked through – I would walk away from my contract, immediately,’’ Folau wrote on PlayersVoice.
From Folau himself: he told Castle, the chief executive of Rugby Australia, that he was prepared to quit his new $4 million deal immediately if his religious beliefs were not compatible with the values of his employer. Now, they clearly are not, yet Folau has walked nowhere.
His quote went viral this week after Folau told Rugby Australia that he would fight his contract termination at a hearing, with former Wallaby Drew Mitchell leading the charge. As Mitchell suggests, Folau’s refusal to walk away from his contract in a clearly untenable situation makes last year’s grand statement appear to be a lie. From the holy bible: ‘‘The Lord detests lying lips, but he delights in people who are trustworthy (Proverbs 12:22).’’
Ask Castle if she considers Folau to be trustworthy. Ask Wallabies coach Michael Cheika. Both claim that they were also given assurances by Folau that he would not continue to use social media to vilify LGBTIQ people. He let them down two months after signing a new contract, in a World Cup year.
If Folau was sincere at the time about quitting his contract on principle, perhaps he just slips out of the potential liar category and two other conclusions can be drawn, one year on from the publication of that column.
One, that he demanded a hearing rather than walking away because he wants to prove that he did nothing wrong; which sounds like pride, one of the seven deadly sins.
Or two, that he wants the hearing because he wants to secure a payout of his $4 million contract; which sounds like the idolatry of money, another of the deadly sins, which featured on his Instagram list of damnable follies.
This hearing can only be about those two things: vindication and money. Forget playing; Folau’s time with the Wallabies and Waratahs is over, given he has been abandoned by his coach and a number of senior team-mates. And forget his religion; Folau himself told us the greatest statement he could make would be to walk away from rugby in the name of his beliefs, money and status be damned.
‘‘It’s about what I believe in and never compromising that, because my faith is far more important to me than my career and always will
be,’’ Folau wrote for PlayersVoice.
Yet when all is said and done, the joke may be on us. Folau also explained that in his column. Should he be exiled by Australian rugby and the NRL, his next available path is lined with cash. Tonnes of it.
‘‘There have been rugby offers from the UK, Europe and Japan that are way above anything I could earn in Australia,’’ he wrote.
If all the cards fall in Folau’s favour, here’s what could happen.
Either the three-person panel at Rugby Australia’s hearing, or a court of law, determines that the termination of Folau’s contract is
wrongful. He is paid out $4 million and he is still just 30 years old, with several years of rugby ahead of him.
With his Wallabies career over and rugby league out of the equation, overseas rugby is the obvious option. Rich clubs in Europe and Japan ask themselves whether they are prepared to court controversy by signing Folau, but a few inevitably decide ‘yes’.
Folau is in the prime of his career; nearing the end of his prime at worst. His price tag, as a test megastar and Super Rugby’s alltime leading try-scorer, could be record-breaking. He remains a great footballer.
Consider that Dan Carter and Matt Giteau both made $2 million per season in French rugby when both were past their best, brilliant though they remained.
The alternative scenario, of course, is that Folau’s contract termination is approved and he leaves Australian rugby with nothing, before finding an overseas offer hard to come by.
But best case, Folau could finish his Wallabies career with a $4 million golden handshake before signing a new contract for double his current salary, earning $2 million-plus per season until he retires after several more seasons. There is a strong chance that his exit won’t damage him financially; that it may in fact enrich him. Folau tends to literal bible interpretation, so his thoughts on this verse would be intriguing.
‘‘Matthew 6:24: No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.’’
World Wide of Sports