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I know its old, but a good read to recap things
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/easte...dan-fitzgerald and is dated 6 April 2017, so just before the hooha began (according to my diary)
and an interesting link to Wayne Smiths article dated 1 April 2016
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/spor...878ea7af458305
that refers to all the pertinent details of the deal of the century which he obviously got from reading the actual terms of the deal - he knows too much detail to have made that stuff up, so no problems for Pulver to share with the press in 2016. Please note Pulvers actual comments re Cox, which are such rubbish.
In brief it says:
"The Australian Rugby Union has given the Melbourne Rebels’ private owner Andrew Cox financial support worth more than $6 million for five years to stop the bleeding from a club that has cost the game between $15 million and $20m since its inception.
Because the deal is front-end loaded, it is understood the Rebels are being paid $2.6m for 2016, the initial year of the deal, but that payments are reduced considerably in value over the remaining four years.
The other four Australian Super Rugby clubs — the Waratahs, Brumbies, Queensland Reds and Western Force — are allocated $1.7m a year for the five-year term of December’s $285m broadcast agreement with Fox and Ten, rising by $50,000 a year. This is over and above the $3.9m that all five clubs, Melbourne included, were allocated last year under the previous broadcast deal to run their club and fund their players.
The Rebels also receive any additional money the ARU periodically gives the clubs, such as the $50,000 they each received to help with marketing.
While the Rebels might receive an additional $900,000 from the ARU in the initial year of the arrangement, the deal peters out so dramatically that in year five, the Melbourne club will receive only $100,000. The benefit for the ARU is that it is now not faced with propping up a club that, on average, was losing $3.5m a season.
Cox is understood to have been granted three more unfunded extensions, each of five years, before the club passes into perpetuity.
Although Cox and the ARU have signed a confidentiality agreement, they agreed to speak out about their arrangement in response to a letter in circulation condemning the arrangement, particularly at a time when the ARU is under fire for not funding club rugby and is battling to keep afloat the other “expansion team”, the Western Force.
The letter also casts doubt on how the deal was arranged: former Melbourne Rebels CEO Rob Clarke, now the ARU’s chief operating officer, introduced Cox to ARU boss Bill Pulver.
Cox has insisted the deal with the ARU was entirely proper and transparent.
Pulver yesterday said it was in the ARU’s interest for Cox to succeed and prove that private ownership worked in Australia. The ARU is of the view that giving Cox assistance now is the best way for the private owner to establish the business in the hope it will be cost-efficient in the future.
“The funding arrangement expires after five years and Cox will get what every other Super Rugby club gets,” said Pulver. “But we chose to go with him because he has a proven record of turning distressed businesses around. We desperately want him to be a success. He can become a role model for other entrepreneurs.”