Folau may be paid to sit on sidelines

Controversial Wallaby Israel Folau could be paid not to play by Rugby Australia.

That’s the theory of former Wallabies player turned sports administrator Pat Howard as Folau prepares to front a Rugby Australia conduct hearing in Sydney today in a bid to save his $4 million contract.

Folau requested the hearing following his dismissal. It will be heard behind closed doors by a threemember panel.

“I can’t see him playing again for Australia,” Howard told BBC Sport. “[But] you can still be paid but not selected.”

Howard is an experienced sports administrator who left his position as the high performance manager of Cricket Australia in November following another high-profile sporting controversy in the country — the balltampering scandal in South Africa in March 2018.

You shouldn’t be able to sack people for religious reasons, we all get that, but you also can’t just say things that vilify everybody. Pat Howard

“I never like writing anybody off ever, for anything,” said Howard, capped 20 times by Australia. “There’s got to be repercussions and then where he ends up, so be it.”

Folau signed a four-year deal with the Waratahs in March and had a contract with Rugby Australia until 2022, having escaped punishment for similar comments last year.

Rugby Australia said he “had committed a high-level breach of the Professional Players’ Code of Conduct warranting termination of his employment contract”.

Howard said the situation “needs to come to a conclusion” but that the case for sacking Folau was “murky’’.

“I’m sure they’re planning for him not to be involved. But I look at this differently,” he said.

“It’s the employment aspect. Unfortunately that will be protracted. You can still be paid but not selected. Selection and employment are two different things. It’s very murky.

“You shouldn’t be able to sack people for religious reasons, we all get that, but you also can’t just say things that vilify everybody. These two things absolutely contradict each other. That’s the real challenge. But a lot of the players have said the situation is not rectifiable, so I think that’s laid the platform.”