Blueprint for rugby revolution

RUGBY UNION: Bret Harris | October 27, 2009

Article from: The Australian

A DISCUSSION paper commissioned by the ARU describes the governance of rugby in Australia as "anachronistic" and "dysfunctional" and recommends a raft of changes, including the establishment of an independent Super Rugby Conference Board.

Other major proposed changes include the election of the ARU board by main stakeholder groups, including provinces, Super rugby franchises, current and retired Wallabies, retired senior officials and the commercial sector. And provincial unions would be solely responsible for community rugby.

The paper, a copy of which has been obtained by The Australian, has been written by Michael Crawford, the respected management consultant who created an influential strategic plan for Australian rugby when the game went professional in the mid-1990s.

With the elaborate title of A Co-operative Framework for Restructuring Australian Rugby for Viability and Competitive Success, the report points out that the ARU constitution was developed in the amateur era and is not equipped to manage professional and community rugby in modern times.

It says the ARU constitution deals directly with the ARU, but indirectly it influences the structure of provincial unions through the flow of funds from the national union.
The voting structure for the ARU board is vested in the constituent provincial unions.

"The net result is a governance and management structure throughout Australian rugby which blurs community and professional matters, frustrates good management, diminishes the opportunity for productive autonomy at all levels and impedes clear responsibility and accountability," Crawford writes.

"No organisation or social movement can thrive under such arrangements, especially when confronted by strong competitors -- as is Australian rugby, both domestically and internationally.

"Australian rugby needs to set community rugby free, and set professional rugby free, each to be managed in its own framework with clear resources (and known limits on them), clear responsibilities and accountability structures, and each managed by people passionate about their task and skilled in it.

"Community rugby certainly owns an asset in rugby's professional teams and is entitled to draw financial and other benefits from those teams and their members.

"But that benefit cannot be any more than professional rugby is able to generate in surplus revenue once it has met the demands of competing successfully and developing in a tough professional sports environment."

Under Crawford's proposals, the ARU would continue as the peak rugby organisation, but the composition of the board would be modernised. "The basis for selecting the ARU board would be modified to suit the times, not those of half a century ago," Crawford writes. "In particular, this means recognising a more diverse set of stakeholders than existed when the ARU was formed.

"It seems unarguable that, representing the broad mass of current community rugby participants, provinces should elect a significant proportion of the board.

"Yet, it also seems unreasonable, in an era of so many disparate stakeholder groups, that officials whose dominant interest is the current management of community rugby should provide even a majority of the ARU board.

"That would entail too much of a risk of subjecting the whole of ARU's activities to current pressures on community rugby.

"Including a representative of the Super rugby franchises would ensure a voice on the board aligned to the realities of professional rugby.

"The remaining board positions, aside from the managing director, would be drawn from the other major stakeholder groups. At the same time it is suggested that a single independent, board-selected position remain."

The paper says there is no possibility of constituting a SANZAR league board based on all the participating franchises because it would be too difficult, but the ARU could create a Super rugby conference with a board that included representatives from each of the franchises. "The membership of the board would consist of one representative from each franchise together with two representatives appointed by the ARU board with matters decided by majority vote of the board," Crawford writes.

Crawford says that funding for each franchise would come from a number of sources, but franchises should not receive funds from a province.

"Indeed, there should be a contractual flow in the opposite direction. Super Rugby teams should be a source of revenue for community rugby in the province," Crawford writes.

"This arrangement only works if there is a clear, arm's length, separation between each franchise and any related provincial union. That would require the franchise, under its own board, to be quite distinct in governance, management and operations, from the board and management of the province."

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au...015651,00.html

Let the fireworks begin! (Grabs popcorn...)

O'Neill has been very receptive of Crawfords reports in the past.

Did Crawford do the soccer one too?

He has done for Rugby in 96 and Soccer as well as all Aus sport.


David Crawford has had an illustrious corporate career, with a focus on risk management and business reorganisation.

He has been Director of BHP Limited since May 1994; Director of BHP Billiton Limited and BHP Billiton Plc since June 2001; Chairman of Foster's Group Limited (since November 2007) and Director of Foster's Group Limited (since August 2001); Chairman of Lend Lease Corporation Limited (since May 2003) and Director (since July 2001); as well as previously being a Director of National Foods and Westpac Limited, and Chairman of KPMG Chartered Accountants.

The AFL commissioned David Crawford to conduct an independent review of the structure of the AFL which led to the creation of an independent commission to oversee the successful development and expansion of that code.

David Crawford also chaired the Independent Soccer Review Committee into the structure, governance and Management of Soccer in Australia.

The 2003 Crawford Report is credited with establishing the blueprint for the sport of football that has seen it achieve unprecedented success over the past few years, including qualification of the Socceroos for the 2006 World Cup, membership of the Asian Football Federation and the establishment of the A-League

Paper hints at Super rugby overhaul


Wayne Smith | August 20, 2009
Article from: The Australian
A SUPER rugby commission could be set up as part of a plan to uncouple the professional game from the state unions if a controversial Australian Rugby Union strategic plan uncovered yesterday is enacted.

The ARU, acting in response to protests from state bodies after they learned the discussion paper allegedly had been leaked by an ARU heavyweight to two provincial union officials for perusal and comment, late yesterday distributed the plan to all state union chief executives.

It's not just the selective leaking of the discussion paper -- which outlines proposals for radically overhauling the entire structure of the game in Australia -- that has, as one state official put it, enraged his union. It's also the fact that the paper was commissioned without reference to the states, even though questions directly relating to its subject matter were put to senior ARU officials at a recent summit meeting involving all state chairmen and CEOs.

"It's been happening without any transparency," one official told The Australian last night.

Ironically, anger at the manner in which the paper was commissioned has been balanced by relief that some of the most pressing questions in Australian rugby have been brought out into the open for wide-ranging debate.

"It's exactly what rugby needed to have a look at," one source said. "The politicking going on is pathetic but if this paper helps to resolve that and restore financial sustainability to the game, then it will be worth it."

It is understood the discussion paper is the Crawford Report, Mark II, written by the same analyst, Michael Crawford, who was commissioned by the then and now current ARU chief executive John O'Neill in 1996 to create a strategic plan for Australian rugby.

The original Crawford Report was approved against the wishes of key Queensland and NSW officials at the time, Norbert Byrne and Ron Meagher, but it remains to be seen whether the states, though highly suspicious of the ARU's means and motives, will array themselves against the new Crawford paper.

The ARU specifically reassured NSW, Queensland, ACT and WA officials at the recent summit meeting that they would hold their Super rugby licences in perpetuity even after they expired when the existing broadcast agreement ends at the end of next year.

It remains to be seen how that promise sits with one Crawford paper model that proposes the establishment of a Super rugby commission to oversee that level of the professional game within Australia. One official suggested that, rather than disenfranchising the states it literally would give them a seat at the table along with the ARU.

However, there is likely to be a groundswell of resentment if the state bodies are uncoupled from the Waratahs, Reds, Brumbies and Western Force. Indeed, Crawford foresaw a similar problem in drawing up his 1996 report.

As O'Neill wrote in his autobiography It's Only a Game, "Crawford also was astute in recognising that the game needed to be careful not to disenfranchise the rank and file and the volunteers who played and supported the game as amateurs at club, suburban and social levels."

Intriguingly, the paper reportedly does not address the issue of private equity, the pursuit of which has become a key ARU objective in recent times.

There is a growing belief in the states that the ARU could force them down the private-equity route by withholding all or part of its annual $4.3million allocations to them to run their professional rugby franchises.

Certainly the national body is intent on applying a private-equity model to the anticipated new Super 15 franchise in Melbourne, a message that is expected to be reinforced later today when ARU senior manager Matt Carroll meets representatives of the three bidding Melbourne consortiums.

Much will depend on the outcome of the broadcast right negotiations. If Australia's cut of the SANZAR pie increases, as is expected to be the case given that the expansion of Super rugby will provide broadcasters with significantly more product, then some officials are arguing that would be the perfect time to invite private equity into the equation.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au...0-2722,00.html

Wow, bet those insights came as a shock to everyone! Wonder what they paid for that exposition on the bleeding obvious? Mind you, they'll probably disregard the outcome because he never played first grade in Sydney and therefore can't possibly have any idea.

Bret Harris | October 28, 2009
Article from: The Australian

FORMER Wallabies centre and current QRU official Dick Marks has criticised proposed changes for the way Australian rugby is governed, claiming it will further centralise power with the ARU and disenfranchise state unions.

As revealed exclusively in The Australian yesterday, a report written by management consultant Michael Crawford described the governance of Australian rugby as "anachronistic" and recommended a raft of changes, including the election of the ARU board by main stakeholder groups and the establishment of an Australian Super Rugby Conference Board.

According to Marks, the proposed changes would result in the ARU having more control over the "top end" of the game.

The membership of the Australian Super Rugby Board would consist of one representative from each Super rugby franchise together with two representatives appointed by the ARU.

"This immediately gives the ARU a one-third stake in the whole provincial professional rugby set-up," Marks wrote in a 45-page critique of the report.

"This would be a very good way for the unions running Super teams to diminish their autonomy. They would be much better off forming their own association to create a very strong lobby that had no connection with the ARU ... It would be an even better idea for all the member unions to form a shareholders association, which would have enormous power."

Crawford argued that the ARU had rights and responsibilities in relation to Super rugby as guarantor of the Australian conference.

"This comes back to the same old obsession that the ARU has about control," Marks wrote.

"It already has enormous control over the existing Super teams by its unwarranted top-up authority and now it wants more because it is offering to go guarantor."

Marks disagreed with the proposal to change the voting structure for the ARU board, which would be elected by electorates that represent all major rugby stakeholder groups.

"This is the undemocratic system that was imposed on the NSWRU while under ARU administration and you have to ask why the heartland was so marginalised in choosing its leaders," Marks wrote.

"This disenfranchisement was brought about by shifting direct accountability to the shareholders as a whole to accountability to a small core of individual stakeholders who could then appoint nearly as many 'independent' directors to join it.

"This system has a number of serious drawbacks and is open to abuse."

Marks also opposed the splitting of professional and amateur rugby at the state level. "The people who make up the game at the base of the pyramid want to remain connected with the top," he wrote.

He argued that success in the sporting arena was not based on structure, but on team performance. "It is naive to attribute the problems of Australian rugby to the governance system," he wrote. "The success of sporting organisations with professional and amateur responsibilities becomes very dependent on the success of the flagship of the professional team and if anybody should know that, it is the ARU."

Australian rugby was failing, he said, because our professional teams were not competitive enough. Talent was spread too thinly across the four Super rugby teams and the Wallabies lacked development systems and pathways.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au...015651,00.html