Warriors director to fight axing

The ownership saga at the Warriors has taken another turn with Cameron Mcgregor deciding to fight his sacking last week as chair of the Carlaw Heritage Trust.

The Trust, an independent arm of Auckland Rugby League, owns 66 per cent of the Warriors.

After a fallout at board level of the Warriors between the trust and minority owners Autex Industries, two options were on the table for the trust – either buy out Autex, or sell its share to them for considerably less than it paid for off Eric Watson last year.

Mcgregor wanted to go with the former option, but the ARL board wanted to sell and it dismissed Mcgregor as its representative on the board last Friday.

With Mcgregor out of the way, the sale to Autex was expected to go ahead without any hiccups, even though the Trust would be around $3million out of pocket from the whole saga.

But after spending a few days taking legal advice, Mcgregor says he believes his dismissal was unlawful and has lodged an appeal.

‘‘The process is that they have got to set up an appeals committee and it will probably have to be independent,’’ Mcgregor told Stuff.

The appeal could be heard next week, with Mcgregor basing his argument around trust case law and precedent. He also believes he should still be regarded as the chair of the Trust.

‘‘If it was unlawful for them to take me off it, then I would stay there as chairman,’’ he said.

‘‘There is a case to say at the moment that because they tried to remove me unlawfully, which I believe they did, then they haven’t removed me. So my position hasn’t changed.’’

Mcgregor says he’s prepared for a long battle with Auckland Rugby League.

‘‘My appeal process doesn’t end there,’’ Mcgregor said.

‘‘If I lost this appeal, I would have a further right of appeal to New Zealand Rugby League and would have further appeals after that, even to the New Zealand Sports Institute and because it’s trusts case law, I would also have recourse to the high court.’’

Auckland Rugby League chairman Shane Price did not respond to Stuff’s request for a comment.