/ARTS WEEKLY/SPORT: For Pacific, Rules Blunt Rugby Challenge

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Kalinga Seneviratne

SYDNEY, Oct 7 2003 (IPS) - The three South Pacific nations leading the islander challenge at the Rugby World Cup, which kicks off here Friday, are blaming the International Rugby Board (IRB) for depleting their sides – a charge so heated that Pacific leaders included it into the political communiqué of their August meeting.

Samoa, Fiji and Tonga, the three Pacific island nations taking part in the World Cup, the once-every-four-year rugby showcase, are without a number of their leading players after the rugby clubs in Europe, particularly in Britain, refused to release them for the two-month event.

"Tonga can’t match the remuneration of these English clubs, but at the end of the day this is a World Cup,” complained Masi Aho, spokesman for the Tongan team, in an interview.

Tonga is without eight of their top players, while Fiji has lost four and Samoa at least two of their stars, due to club contracts in Europe, where the rugby season has just begun.

The issue is a controversial and emotional one in the Pacific islands, were rugby is the most popular sport especially in Fiji, Samoa and Tonga.

Fiji Rugby Union chief executive Pio Bosco Tikoisuva blamed the crisis on the decision to schedule the World Cup in October and November – right at the start of the northern hemisphere season.

Pacific countries are also unhappy with the IRB for not making it obligatory for clubs to release its contracted players for national duty. They are also frowning on new eligibility rules introduced by the international body that lock in rugby players to play for only one country for life.

"If the IRB want the game to spread and develop in the so-called second-tier countries (which includes the Pacific Islands), then they need to make rules flexible enough so that they can develop strong national sides," Kenape Tuuau, manager of the Samoan side, told IPS.

In the first World Cup in 1991, Samoa surprised the rugby world when they stormed into the quarter-finals by beating rugby powerhouse Wales in front of their home crowd in Cardiff, and gave the Australians a tough time before going down narrowly.

They repeated this feat in 1995, only to lose to eventual champions South Africa in the quarterfinal.

But after professionalism was introduced to this amateur game in the mid-1990s, Samoan rugby has been struggling to match these feats. "Professionalism has not helped us," said Tuuau.

He explained that many Samoan children after, excelling in the sport at school in Samoa, gets scholarships to go and study in New Zealand.

"Many get selected to play for New Zealand or for state sides at junior levels and this makes them ineligible to play for Samoa," complained Tuuau. "Most of them have missed the opportunity to play at a World Cup, because they will never make it to the All Blacks side.”

A third of the New Zealand All Blacks side is of Samoan descent, many of them born in New Zealand. But the All Blacks have never played a game in Samoa. On the other hand most of the Samoan side in 1991 and 1995 were New Zealand-based players.

The 30-member Tongan team taking part in the World Cup have only four players who are based in Tonga, an island of only 100,000 people. Nine of their players are based in New Zealand and seven in Australia.

Tonga qualified for the World Cup after drubbing Asian champions South Korea by 119 to nil in Nuku’alofa. Tonga’s New Zealand coach Jim Love told the ‘Planet Rugby’ website recently that when he took over the coaching assignment for Tonga, he had to draw up a database of Tongan rugby players spread worldwide.

"It’s frustrating to get hold of guys at times and impossible at others," he said, adding, "if you look at the All Blacks they have four guys capable of representing Tonga, and Australia has a few".

He attributes this to a system where most good rugby players are shipped to these countries on scholarships " and sometimes never becomes available for Tonga".

Many islander players see it as a bigger honour to represent the All Blacks or the Australian Wallabies. In addition, after professionalism was introduced to the sport, they do not want to miss out on lucrative Super 12 or domestic competition contracts in New Zealand and Australia.

This could be reversed beginning next year. The IRB has approved a request by the islanders to field a joint Pacific Islands side to play regular games against All Blacks, Wallabies and the South African Springboks beginning in 2004.

Although rugby is now facing a desperate situation, unable to compete with its new professional code, the fact is that the sport has added an extra dimension to Pacific Island economies.

Remittances sent home by rugby players along with soldiers in the U.N. peacekeeping forces and the U.S. and British armies have become major sources of foreign exchange for their home countries.

Thus, it is no surprise that for the first time, sports made it into the final communiqué of Pacific Islands Forum leaders’ meeting in August, when the host, New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clarke was asked to take up the issue of rule changes with the Dublin-based IRB.

Pacific islanders want eligibility rules changed to reflect the International Olympic Committee rules, which allow an athlete to compete for another country after a three-year grace period.

In addition, Pacific nations, which only have observer status at the IRB, which is dominated by Europeans and Australia and New Zealand, want the international body to help them increase their revenues from television rights and other sources.

Lack of tours to the Pacific islands by the major rugby playing nations is one problem, because under IRB rules visiting teams do not get any revenue out of television rights or gate receipts. This, critics in the region, only makes the rich richer when Pacific nations play away games.

Aho argues that if the Pacific island nations are given the opportunity to increase their income from rugby, they would be able to match any rugby playing nation on the field.

"We have the talent, but need to generate revenue for the game, so that our players could be remunerated properly for national duty,” he said.