We should cheer when ABs make some money
Why do we celebrate Steven Adams’ riches but sneer at rugby players?
GETTY IMAGES OPINION: Here’s a news flash for hidebound snobs who are offended by the fact money is now a part of rugby.
Rugby players, like lawyers, drainlayers, and even journalists, deserve a fair wage for their work.
The times when players were treated like serfs by officials have gone.
In the glory days, when the chaps at Twickers dictated to the world how rugger folk, as true amateurs, should act, an All Black, Grant Batty, charged $4 to his hotel room in Christchurch for a lunch with the local liaison officer, as the All Blacks prepared for a test with the 1977 Lions.
Batty was sternly chastised by the team manager, Ron Don, who wrote to him saying he was ‘‘surprised and disappointed’’ Batty hadn’t paid for the lunch himself.
It astounds me that in 2017 there are still those who suggest it’s money grubbing if anyone dares say an extra All Black game at Twickenham should involve a fair profit share with New Zealand. Or that players who head off shore to big contracts are somehow ungrateful turncoats.
Much of the whining about the All Blacks, a major sporting attraction, wanting a slice of extra revenue from the crowds they draw, comes, naturally, from British scribblers.
In 2011 NZRU chief executive Steve Tew, backed by the Australian CEO at the time, John O’Neill, said ’’ we lose $13.2m worth of revenue after income from Rugby World Cup and costs are adjusted’’ and speculated that the All Blacks might not be at the 2015 cup.
Bless him, our old mate Stephen Jones was in like a robber’s dog. What Tew was suggesting, he wrote, was ‘‘bullying’’ and ‘‘blackmail.’’
Then Jones had what veteran journalist Spiro Zavos has called ‘‘possibly the most stupid proposition ever put forward by a senior rugby writer, anywhere and at any time.’’
His recommendation? Replace the All Blacks in 2015 with Spain, which he believed would galvanise European rugby at a stroke, with ‘‘new commercial potential, and transform the scene.’’ Instead, strangely, Spain didn’t play at the World Cup in 2015, and New Zealand got a slightly better deal.
This week Tew copped it for allegedly being a ‘‘sell out’’ in a socalled lolly scramble for money from a proposed England-All Blacks game.
As it happens it’s now apparent Tew acted honourably throughout, never backing down on the Barbarians agreement.
What’s really pathetic is the slur that somehow the very idea of Tew trying to get more money when the All Blacks are involved is intrinsically grubby.
Professional sport is a busi- ness, and, just as Adele is making a fortune this week in Auckland, popularity pays.
The current All Blacks are not only the World Cup holders, and officially the No.1 ranked team in the world, they also play the most attractive rugby of any major international side. So if you want them at Twickenham, don’t expect to get them for what it might cost to get Spain.
Unlike English rugby, we don’t have the benefit of an 82,000 seat stadium in a city of 8.7 million people like London. What we have are crazily big spending European clubs who look at New Zealand rugby the same way a fox looks at a hen house.
So in fact, Steve Tew should be working whenever possible to raise the money we need to run the game here.
Not that we don’t have some antiquated thinking nearer home. In New Zealand bleating about players being paid started almost immediately the game went pro in ‘96, and it’s never really stopped. It’s always astounded me. A rugby career can be cut short in a split second. In February three years ago prop Ben Afeaki was a hugely promising 26-yearold new All Black.
But in the opening game of the 2014 Super Rugby season in Christchurch he and his Chiefs’ team-mate Brodie Retallick clash heads. Afeaki doesn’t know it at the time, but, after a nightmare year battling the headaches and nausea that can follow concussion, his rugby career will be over.
In a high risk business, it’s surely only common sense to capitalise while you can.
What’s really odd is that the knives only seem to be out for rugby. Steven Adams signs a $35 million a year NBA contract that will see him earn in a fortnight what most All Blacks earn in a year. He’s a lovely guy, it’s a great success story, and, quite rightly, Kiwis are delighted at his good fortune. Why don’t we all have the same generosity of spirit about rugby players?
My oldest grandson is 23 and his gifts are academic rather than sporting.
But imagine being the parent or grandparent of Aaron Cruden, Tawera Kerr-Barlow, Charlie Faumauina, or Steven Luatua. He tells you a club in Europe has offered him a chance of guaranteed income for two or even three seasons, regardless of whether he’s injured, or his form slumps.
What, he asks, do you think he should do? I know I couldn’t possibly say anything except ‘‘travel safely’’.