Attorney-General and Economy Minister Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum says certain conditions came with the setting up of the Fijian Drua franchise, one of which its affairs would be run separately from Fiji Rugby.
Speaking in Parliament this week, Sayed Khaiyum said the New Zealand Rugby Union (NZRU) did not want Super Rugby teams handled by the rugby union of a particular country.
He made the comments after member of Parliament Joseph Nand asked for an update on the investment and support provided to Counter Ruck Pte Ltd which owns and operates the Fijian Drua.
Sayed-Khaiyum said NZRU wanted an independent entity which led to the creation of Counter Ruck Pte Ltd.
He said one of the conditions was it required a minimum of $NZ3 million equity or debt. “Of course, in addition to the financial matters, a range of high performance and team performance KPIs were also in place,” he said.
“The rationale, of course, as I said, was to set up a separate private company to keep the financial affairs of the rugby union away from the team that is going to participate in the Super Rugby competition, because of any financial failures that may occur.
“Because these competitions are extremely expensive and if it is going to put additional burden to the rugby union, we could have the entire structure within that individual country collapse. That is why they have to keep that as separate entities.”
Sayed-Khaiyum said when approached by Counter Ruck to finance the Drua franchise, the Government could not give a grant to a private company because taxpayers funds were involved. He said the Government decided to become an equity owner after seeing the economic advantages of a Fijian team competing in Super Rugby.
“We also saw the economic advantage in terms of the competition and how Fiji of course is going to be the home base for Drua, at least not now but later on it will be. We saw the economic benefits and we also know rugby is a very, very important part of our national psyche,” he said.
“We then said that we could become an equity holder. In that way we could actually give the $6 million but in return get shares for it as we do in other companies.
“So which is what we have done and as a result of which we get 51 per cent of Counter Ruck, we have already disbursed $3 million, the second lot of $3 million will be disbursed by December, 2022.”
Sayed-Khaiyum said the idea was that the Drua becomes a formidable team and that it develops a good brand.
“We have said that in time to come, the Government could of course divest its shares, get back its money but what we would have done would have had the Drua team up and running and a good company will be running it too.”