Force cut their losses and take Firepower failure on the chin

[Thequeerone]

The Western Force Super 14 franchise are reluctant to pursue controversial sponsor Firepower through the courts to recover hundreds of thousands of dollars owed them.

Force chairman Geoff Stooke said yesterday that he believed "there would be no money to recover money from".

Force cut their losses and take Firepower failure on the chin

[BLR]

You've got to wonder whether any of the Force administrators will be held accountable, did they even have a look at Firepowers cash flow at the time?

[Tazzmania]

Did CEO (P.O.M) not quit round about the time FirePower stopped paying players Dec Jan, has the fall already been taken?

[Darren]

For a Jacquelin Magnay article, that read surprisingly like an unbiased reporting of the facts ...

[PerthGirl]

Yes, That's what I thought as well. Perhaps they are worried about threat of legal action

[Burgs]

Re accountability, genuine question, is it up to the Force to do due diligence on a potential sponsor if they are offering?
Would they even have a right to do so?
Assumption is often the mother of all f*ckups but if someone is offering sponsorship I would think the norm would be to assume that they have run the figures and have the funds available.
I doubt they checked Emirates cash flow before taking them on and the same protocols would be in place for all sponsors I would think?

[TOCC]

I thought since it was a third party agreement that the Force werent responsible for the payments to the players.

The money owing to the club on the other hand is a problem.

[BLR]

I doubt they checked Emirates cash flow before taking them on and the same protocols would be in place for all sponsors I would think?

Assumptions only work if there is logic to it, Emirates is a well established large company with no end in sight. Firepower are still an unknown quantity and before such large amounts were offers as sponsorship due diligence surely would have been needed. It's all well and good wanting sponsorship dollars but if you are getting half a million dollars you need to check the companies assets, cash flows and/or any guarantees they have on the money. It seems all the Force got were the intangible promise Firepower will be rich as kings. They should have secured the sponsorship dollars through a contract secured by Firepowers real assets, we could be winding up Firepower right about now and getting our money instead of waiting for the court system to bleed them dry.

[KenyaQuin]

To be fair, how much information required will be freely released by a company? What would the expectation have been had the sponsor been Ansett or One.Tel or Bridgecorp, for example? I'm not privy to the dealings between sponsor and sponsored but I would think that unless you're into corporate forensics, somethings just can't be avoided.

[travelling_gerry]

Assumptions only work if there is logic to it, Emirates is a well established large company with no end in sight. Firepower are still an unknown quantity and before such large amounts were offers as sponsorship due diligence surely would have been needed. It's all well and good wanting sponsorship dollars but if you are getting half a million dollars you need to check the companies assets, cash flows and/or any guarantees they have on the money. It seems all the Force got were the intangible promise Firepower will be rich as kings. They should have secured the sponsorship dollars through a contract secured by Firepowers real assets, we could be winding up Firepower right about now and getting our money instead of waiting for the court system to bleed them dry.

Corporate failures are a fact of business.

But as a former Rugby Club secretary I would imagine the answer from a potential sponsorship offer from "Bill the local electrician" to his rugby club and then being asked to lay open his books would be........

[Jasper]

Should also be noted that Firepower did meet all its commitments for the last 2.5 - to 3 years up until December 07 - so wasn't as if they made a commitment and then did not deliver anything

- having said that - Mr Johnston did go extremely overboard with all the sponsorships.

[BLR]

To be fair, how much information required will be freely released by a company? What would the expectation have been had the sponsor been Ansett or One.Tel or Bridgecorp, for example? I'm not privy to the dealings between sponsor and sponsored but I would think that unless you're into corporate forensics, somethings just can't be avoided.

Well RugbyWA could have surely asked for a statement of Firepowers assets and projected earnings over the contract period, they could even go as far as to ask for an individual accountant to have a look at it. It's not neccesary by law but is a step that could have realistically been taken, hell, when you sell a second hand car the buyer can ask it to get certified by RAC, dealing with such amounts of money surely some steps would have needed to be taken.

If RugbyWA had asked for reports Income, Balance, and Cash flow Statements they could have been refused but if so they would have known Firepower wasn' above board and we wouldn't be in this mess.

[Thequeerone]

how often would you refuse someone who offered you sponsorship - perhaps asking for so much up front before announcing it or putting it on shirts .. but even so not many companies want to be in firepowers position were they are seen to let down people's favourite sporting club to the tune of a couple of mill - for rugbywa bad for basketball devastating

[brokendown gunfighter]

asking for that information might have upset the Russian mafia BLR

[Burgs]

So a couple of (I'm guessing) layman's views on what "should" have happened, and we have established that you don't need to ask Emirates or Bill the sparky.
I think the reality is probably close to what KQ is saying, it's all well and good with old 20-20 hindsight but as Jasper say's, they were meeting their commitments.
I admit to guessing this, but I would think it would be highly irregular for an orginisation to checking up on a potential sponsor.
It was certainly an unusual sponsor when announced but hey, so is ET Mining, perhaps they are dodgy too.
There's only a few that put any faith in FMG too...