Breaking News:
Twiggy has found a document from back in feburary to the ARU with legal advice that the only team that they could legally cut was the Force, not the rebels or the brumbies.
Breaking News:
Twiggy has found a document from back in feburary to the ARU with legal advice that the only team that they could legally cut was the Force, not the rebels or the brumbies.
"I've never seen anyone knock back $50 million"
He's also outlining how he thinks that the force have been bullied and ambushed by the ARU. Saying the decision was made in Feb to cut the force - which that document outlines.
Saying clyne needs to stand down as he tried to pass this off as a process being used. Basically saying he went to litigation instead of using leadership.
Essentially the only way forest will financially contribute to rugby is for the force to be reinstated and for clyne to resign. As well as a massive governance overhaul.
Saying it isn't too late, he knows what the 11th hour looks like and that there is still time for this to be reversed.
My initial questions following Twiggy's revelation:
1. If the advice was received in February, when was it requested by the ARU?
2. Why did the ARU seek the legal advice? Was it prompted by a pre-Feb conversation with SANZAAR? If so, it means the ARU went to that meeting in April with only one name to throw in the ring - the Force.
3. What was the reason for the whole charade from April onwards? What was it that was so secret that the ARU felt it appropriate to leave about 60 of their own employees and their families in emotional turmoil for months? Not to mention fork out loads on lawyers AND waste the court's time.
4. Will RUPA now PLEASE do something and sue the ARU or at the very least make an OHS complaint against the Board on behalf of its members for the bullying and emotional ill-health that they DELIBERATELY inflicted on these poor, innocent souls.
5. Will a journalist with some integrity and editorial independence please now shine a bright light on this whole fiasco and expose these sub-humans for the morally-bankrupt charlatans, liars, cheats that they are.
Sad to say I'm not surprised by this at all. But the whole board must have known this?? I just can't believe they went through this charade for all these months! Well done Andrew Forrest but judging from past performance I have no hope that the ARU will do anything but deny!
In the fox recap - twiggy said he released the document. Has anyone found it yet?
The "Smoking Gun" is revealed, I think.
It wasn't even a charade.
If you recall in April after the Sunday announcement of the reduction in sides an the announcement of the 48-72 hour timeframe and Pulver and Clyne went to Melbourne and we got a visit from the 2 hatchet men and when they arrived they left promptly with a threat of legal action.
It was always going to be us, Melbourne have NEVER been in the firing line.
WAYNE SMITH
The Australian10:07AM August 30, 2017
Legal advice the Australian Rugby Union sought in February showed there was only one team that provided a “low risk” of being successfully terminated by the national body, the Western Force.
That, at least, was the thrust of documents released this morning by the Force billionaire backer Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest at an early morning press conference in Perth.
According to the documents, the ARU sought a legal assessment of ease with which it would be able to terminate one of the then three contenders, the Brumbies, the Melbourne Rebels and the Force.
They received identical advice regarding the Brumbies and the Force. “If a negotiated exit is not achieved, an attempt by the ARU to terminate the Brumbies/Rebels Participation Deed without cause would constitute an unlawful termination.”
But with the Force, the advice was markedly different.
“There is no legal obligation to retain the Western Force in the Super Rugby competition following the renegotiation of the broadcast contracts. If the broadcast contracts are renegotiated with effect from the end of the 2107 Super Rugby season, the Alliance Agreement will automatically terminate at the end of the 2017 season and the obligation on the ARU to maintain the Western Force as a Super Rugby team in Perth will lapse at that point.”
Seemingly everything that happened from the time the ARU received that legal advice corresponded to that document — which supports Forrest’s claim that the Western Force was always the team the ARU was pursuing. That brings into question whether the process was fair. It also casts doubt on the ARU’s repeated claim that the all their advice indicated that a team in Perth should be the one culled, despite the fact that the Western Force finished with as many wins as the Australian conference champions, the Brumbies, and had the third largest player base in the country after NSW and Queensland.
Forrest said he did not hold ARU chief executive Bill Pulver responsible for how the process had been conducted but he did not spare ARU chairman Cameron Clyne, calling for him to resign immediately.
In another broadside, Forrest warned the ARU to cease and desist from suggesting that he had entered the fray too late to save the Force. He claimed he had stayed above the process while he thought the process was fair and reasonable — in which case he did not expect the Force to be cut. It was only when he suspected that the process might be tilted dramatically at the Perth club that he intervened.
“Had I known that the injustice of the decision to cut the Western Force was made in February, then I would have stepped in then,” Forrest said.” I firmly believe the Rebels and the Western Force should both survive and then both should attract sponsorship to guarantee their future, as I have done for the Western Force.
“I ask the ARU to never say again I stepped in late, had I known what the Chairman knew I would have stepped in back in February. I do not blame Mr. Bill Pulver, who I respect as a frank and honest servant of the Board, but I do hold the Chairman accountable and call on him to resign.”
Attempts to elicit a response to Forrest’s statement from the ARU were unsuccessful.
The thing that bothers me in all of this is that the legal advice given to the ARU that there is no legal obligation to retain the Force due to the renegotiation of the broadcast deal and that the Alliance Agreement will be null and void at the end of the 2017 season. So we still need a favourable decision from the Judge for us to stay alive. If we get that decision then we can take the ARU to the cleaners if we choose.