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I can't imagine that the WA Rugby legal eagles would agree to go to arbitration if they didn't believe it to be in our interests to do so.
Sometimes you have to be patient and allow the process to roll.
I'm not sure how the Rebels managed to make their recent signing with the cloud over their future as much as it is over the Force.
To be honest I would be happy to just retain the current playing group. They've done a brilliant job this year and next year will have one more years experience under the belt of the young guns. Hopefully Coleman, DHP and TPN are encouraging everyone to stay on.
Agree PJ - The legal team have apparently been busting their arses on this, and would be pretty confident on our win. Sinders is showing he's willing to come to the party and give a little bit of territory so both parties can resolve this instead of stubbornly digging in and not giving an inch. I'm just wondering what happens after we win the arbitration ruling when we get to 2020. By the sounds of it the ARU board may be in for a takeover with this Buildcorp move, so hopefully there will be a whole new situation by then.
My only concern is about losing our present players - rumours about players leaving is depressing! Bashing the Rebels and Tahs with bonus point wins should firm up our position.
In addition - how poor is it that the Rebels sign up an English lock when they must have known Simmons was being released! How bloody crap is that treatment of Rob, as if Cheika and the ARU didn't know, but then when the Rebels fold he'd be without a job anyway.
So, hypothetically, if we go through this process and win. With all these rumours of players signing elsewhere, if we end up with a skeleton squad (If Chance & Rona headed to League they won't be signing 'in case contracts') and because of the timing of the process the Own the Force campaign never gets up. What the hell do we do then? Limp to 2020 with no players and no money until we are cut?
The biggest issue for the the Force wiil be not only to win the last couple of games but to get good numbers through the gate. I dont know how the finances look after the Road Safety dollars are in, but posting another loss including that would be disastrous.
OTOH, I think it's likely the Rebels will bleed lots again. How long can Cox wear that?
I've seen it reported that the Rebels on track for about a $6 million loss this year. They have already lost $33 million since 2011 at an average loss of $4.75 million a year. That some people within the ARU think that sustaining this amount lost each year is astounding.
The Melbourne Rebels Rugby Union Ltd has not filed any accounts with ASIC since Cox took over in July 2015. Not sure if their figures are included as part of his Group but I couldn't see any accounts for Imperium (?) on the ASIC website either. The company had zero debt when he acquired it because the ARU wrote it all off.
Their Super Rugby grant in 2016 was double the size of ours and I imagine they have a similar number of players on Wallaby top-ups as us so they should be paying around the same as us in salaries (assuming they are operating under the salary cap.) so if they've made a $6m loss in 12 months that's pretty rubbish financial management imo!
Proudly Western Australian; Proudly supporting Western Australian rugby
Not equal at all!!
Check the table at the end of the first post on this thread:
http://twf.com.au/showthread.php?t=3...+unsustainable
(Note: our grant figure for 2016 INCLUDES the $3.7m we got for the sale of our licence & IP. The Rebels' grant figure includes a $2.6m "special payment" which the ARU agreed to pay to the Rebels as part of the "sale" of the company to Cox. Don't know if the $2.6m was a one-off or whether it's an annual commitment. Will have to wait for the 2017 accounts to find out!)
Proudly Western Australian; Proudly supporting Western Australian rugby
Alison, I just looked a that table.
Have our leagal eagles got a copy of that?
If I was a judge and saw that table I would be telling the ARU to stop wasting mine and everyone else's time and just drop the Rebels.
Surely they don't have any case to shut down the Force.
If you deduct the $3.7m then we are the best value for money franchise in Australia.