Analysis: NZ players' threat the biggest development in rugby in 30 years

Analysis: Not since rugby went professional in 1995 have we seen such ructions here, writes Patrick McKendry.

The New Zealand Rugby Players’ Association (NZRPA) escalation in its fight with New Zealand Rugby (NZR) over its governance model is the biggest development in the game here since it went professional almost 30 years ago.

The professional game will effectively be unmanageable without the players’ union’s support. That’s because if the association withdraws its support, then the collective agreement, which consists of everything from salary agreements to agreements over promotional duties, will become null and void.

Imagine a world in which the players refuse to indulge in sponsorship or promotional duties – that could be a reality if the NZRPA doesn’t get its way.

There is no way NZ Rugby would have the time and resource to sit down and negotiate every professional player’s salary and conditions. There are about 280 full-time professional athletes across the men’s and women’s games in New Zealand.

So it's fascinating that the Players' Association hasn't merely threatened to insist on individual contracts - with the chaos that would represent - and has instead proposed a completely new professional governance model.

"We would look to run the professional game separately in conjunction with the partners that we need to - Super Rugby clubs, the Māori rugby board, the NZRU in some sort of minority way - obviously they're going to have to be part of the picture... because currently things are not good," Players' Association head Rob Nichol told 1News this afternoon.

This afternoon's warning in a letter to the provincial union board directors and New Zealand Māori board directors is explicit.

"We appreciate this has been a long and challenging process," it said. "We understand you may feel ‘governance review fatigue’ and be keen to see the game move past this chapter in its history. We urge you to reject that feeling and engage fully over the next few weeks."

The major sticking point is the apparent reluctance of those provincial union representatives on the board to resign and reapply for the jobs in competition with those with potentially more commercial experience as recommended by the Pilkington Report which was instigated by none other than NZ Rugby.

Some, or all, of the provincial union representatives are said to be wary of giving up power to those independents who may not have as much real-word rugby experience – in other words, a “feel for the game” - but Nichol’s reply would be that it’s more important to get individuals with a wider range of skills elected on to a board on their own merits.

NZ Rugby’s new governance model will be voted on at a special general meeting in Wellington a week on Thursday. A two-thirds majority is required to pass the new model.

It’s probably instructive that the Pilkington Report only materialised due to the NZRPA insistence as a condition of the 7.5% sale of NZ Rugby’s equity to US investment fund manager Silver Lake.

The NZRPA made clear their concerns about that deal and they have come to pass with the news that New Zealand Rugby’s financial health has taken a dramatic turn for the worse.

According to the New Zealand Herald, NZ Rugby is losing so much money that it will have burned through its $200 million of Silver Lake cash by 2031.

The reality is that the transformational lift in revenue that NZR projected to deliver once Silver Lake came on board as an equity partner in 2022 has not materialised.

The money is running out and so is NZ Rugby's control - on several levels.

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