Conflicting views have risen from the dispute over Albert Park in Suva.
The Suva City Council in an interview with this newspaper yesterday revealed the core reason as to why the venue was given to the Fiji Rugby Union instead of the Fiji Football Association.
Acting chief executive Tevita Boseiwaqa stated that both organisations had negotiated with SCC, but no deposit had been done.
However, he said that SCC had given the venue to FRU because it was willing to pay whatever amount required while the Fiji FA was still negotiating for less.
“The FRU is now booking the whole of Albert Park; they have reviewed the quote and are requesting to increase to seal off the entire venue.
“They are willing to pay; they are not negotiating for the rate to be reduced. We are treating this as a tier one, we are giving priority to them because we are not negotiating to reduce, they are willing to pay for the four days,” Boseiwaqa stated.
Boseiwaqa revealed that the initial quotation given to the Fiji FA was $69,000 for the 18 days, this was reduced to $39,000 and after a further review, the SCC decreased it to $25,000.
The Fiji FA however proposed to pay $1,000 per day for the 18 days.
When asked if the SCC had informed the Fiji FA that FRU was also negotiating for the same venue, Boseiwaqa said, “No. We don’t have to tell them.”
However, the Fiji FA general manager operations Anushil Kumar argued that was not the case.
“When I went for the initial meeting, they clearly told me, ‘my brother don’t worry, Fiji Rugby has not come for their bookings’. I told them that I was quite sure that Fiji Rugby would come at a later date to book your grounds.
“Considering that, I told them to leave grounds 1 and 3 for rugby and that’s why we were just taking two grounds which are far on each side which is not used.
“I don’t know what’s there to hide about the Fiji Rugby booking and the thing is, we were just there for the two grounds and booking was already taken but we were just in the negotiation phase because of the high-cost factor which was 500% more than what we paid for the same ground last year,” Kumar said.
