SBW’S OLYMPIC DREAMS OF RIO

Code-hopping star aims for Sevens switch

CODE-HOPPING SONNY Bill Williams has Olympic aspirations – he wants to win a medal at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games playing rugby sevens, the Star-Times can reveal.

In heartening news for rugby fans, the Star-Times understands Williams plans to return to the 15-man game by 2015 to try to reclaim his ABs jersey in time for that year’s world cup in England.

But Williams’ aspirations as a pro boxer may lead him to quit all rugby after the 2016 Olympics.

Williams, who has a fight against South African Francois Botha on February 9 for the WBA International heavyweight title, will play rugby league with the Sydney Roosters for this season but has made no commitments beyond that but the Sunday Star-Times has learned he has a tentative road map for the remainder of an unusual career that has taken him from league to rugby and back to league while also taking on professional boxing.

Williams would like to play, if selected, for the Kiwis at this year’s league world cup, and is open- minded about playing league or rugby in 2014. He will return to rugby before 2015 to fight for his ABs jersey ahead of the world cup in England. The following year he would spend on boxing and rugby sevens, with an eye to the Rio Olympics, before boxing fulltime.

Williams and his manager Khoder Nasser wouldn’t talk directly on their long-term plans, with Williams saying he didn’t want to look too far ahead.

But Williams did say he was motivated by challenges. ‘‘When I am finished, I just want to say I have tried lots of things, and I’ve done as well as I can.’’

It’s thought the Williams’ camp sees the treble of winning a league world cup, being in the first All Blacks team to win a rugby world cup offshore and then succeeding at the Olympics in sevens is the biggest sporting challenge he could take on.

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T WILL please some people to learn that when Sonny Bill Williams walked out on a $2 million, five-year contract in Sydney, flew to France in secret and decided to play for a team owned by a multimillionaire, he found himself at his lowest ebb. Back in Australia, he was being taunted as Money Bill, or if you were particularly clever, $ onny Bill, the man who had swapped loyalty for lucre.

‘‘It wasn’t about money,’’ says Williams now. ‘‘Although everyone said it was . . . I felt like I was being abused by the authorities, and had to make a stand for myself.’’

So he borrowed $750,000 from his friend, Anthony Mundine, to buy his way out of his contractual obligations in Australia and redirect his career on his own terms. ‘‘And at that point,’’ says Williams. ‘‘I had nothing to lose. I had no money, I was in debt. It was the lowest of the lows.’’

Five years later, Williams is an All Blacks world champion, boxing professionally, making a return to his first sport, rugby league, which is expected to add millions to the game’s bottom line. He has reached this career zenith, it could be argued, by taking a groundbreaking approach in which he refuses to be a forelock- tugging serf to sport’s powerbrokers.

Emboldened by his experience in French rugby union, Williams now signs only short- term contracts – and negotiates fiercely, not least for the freedom to box. The pleas of commentators such as the

Herald on Sunday’s Gregor Paul that it was ‘‘critical the pants are wrestled off Sonny Bill . . . so the New Zealand Rugby Union can start wearing them again’’ have gone unheeded by a man who lives by the mantra that ‘‘you are necessary only as long as you are wanted’’.

Williams’ new approach to the business of sport appears to be influencing others. When he demanded ‘‘ flexibility’’ from the NZRU, other players followed his lead; when he made it clear that rugby league authorities could not dictate his off- season activities, others wanted dispensation to earn big bucks in Japanese rugby during their downtime.

Deep inside, says Williams, he remains the shy Samoan boy in the corner of the dressing room. ‘‘You have to force yourself not to be, because you hate to admit it, but the world is sometimes not a nice place.’’ So how did this man rewrite all the rules of the sports business?

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OU MIGHT redirect the question to Williams’ manager, Khoder Nasser, the Sydney-raised son of Lebanese Muslims, once described by the Sydney Daily

Telegraph’s Rebecca Wilson as a man with ‘‘no basic values’’ who Top of the pile: SBW’s skills on the rugby field (of whichever code and at whatever level) are undisputed – his boxing ability is yet to be truly tested. had turned footballers into mercenaries.

Nasser fell into sports management by chance – after befriending a young Mundine, then a brilliant if outspoken star for the St George rugby league club, he was anointed Mundine’s manager despite a CV that stretched to stints in a cafe and a chemist. Nasser says he’s simply fortunate, a sports fanatic living the dream. ‘‘I get to be in an intimate position to watch it all unravel,’’ he says. ‘‘Dead serious, I am extremely lucky. I find myself in an extremely privileged position.’’ Yet he is a fearsome and unusual negotiator. Nasser works alone, acts only for a handful of clients. Doesn’t own a computer. Prefers a handshake to contracts, even with his own clients. Says he isn’t interested in sponsors, fringe benefits and other fripperies, but ‘‘ works out a number’’ and concentrates on it. He explains his approach by saying: ‘‘Everyone can search for a better and better deal. Where does it end? You look at the contract, you think ‘I am getting screwed here, I gotta push a bit more here’. I think ‘I am happy, he’s happy’, that’s it.’’

Nasser thinks most sports organisations are greedy, have a ‘‘siege mentality’’ and want to ‘‘cheat’’ the regular athlete of what he’s worth. He says agents would be redundant if the authorities were honest. ‘‘But in the world of business, people sometimes think it is better to rob the other person.’’ At this, he essays a manic grin – while this is his first interview in more than two years, Nasser enjoys being provocative.

Nasser sees his small roster – he represents only Williams and the Waikato- born Wallabies rugby player Quade Cooper, and until a split last year over a failed United States boxing promotion, Mundine – as a quality, arguing agents with multiple clients collude with administrators.

And it also suits him because he says his approach works only because he represents exceptional athletes. Otherwise, ‘‘they walk all over you. Khoder gonna walk in and say ‘ this guy is worth $100,000?’ and they say ‘well f--you, he can have $50,000 or you can f--- off’. You can’t do shit, you got nothing. I am absolutely powerless [without talent].’’

Williams dumped his first manager, Gavin Orr, ‘‘after finding out

It wasn’t about money. Although everyone said it was . . . I felt like I was being abused by the authorities, and had to make a stand for myself.

Sonny Bill Williams

a few things’’ and because he was uncomfortable with being touted around different clubs. He knew Nasser socially from hanging out at Boxa, a Sydney cafe Nasser coowns with Mundine, and asked him to take over his affairs. Critics chart this as the point Williams began to rebel; he went on to infamously walk out on the Bulldogs league club and flee to France over a contract dispute.

‘‘People go on about him [Nasser] being money-hungry, but he’s doing all right for himself, he honestly doesn’t need me,’’ says Williams. ‘‘He may rub a lot of people up the wrong way, but he’s always straight to the point: yes or no. Other managers like to bargain and use clubs. We say yes or no. We can do it, or we can’t. That’s what I love. I don’t want to f--people around. Khoder is going to be a man about it. If someone rings, and they will if I am playing well, he will say we can either do it or we can’t. Go ask the NZRU, we have always been straight up with them.’’

So I did ask the NZRU chief executive, Steve Tew, how he found negotiating with Nasser. ‘‘Everyone in here found Khoder very straight up, which was refreshing,’’ Tew says unhesitatingly. ‘‘ Obviously, he has a different way of doing things. He has a very clear view of what he wants for his clients and he puts it on the table. We had very efficient negotiations, no mucking around. He’s very easy to deal with – he tells you what he wants.’’

Yes, says SkyTV chief executive John Fellet, who has agreed every broadcast deal with Nasser (whose fighters are unique in having had every one of their bouts on payper- view television) on a handshake. ‘‘It suits me fine, and it suits him fine. He has always kept every commitment.’’

Tew claims Williams wasn’t the