FIJI Rugby Union says processing the bonus payment from the Gold Coast 7s win is in progress and should be deposited in the players’ bank account by the coming week.
FRU CEO Radrodro Tabualevu said the payment process they had adopted took at least three weeks to reach the players.
He said in the process, they received money from the sponsors Vodafone which was then transferred to the Prime Minister’s office for “tax purposes”.
He said once they received the money from the Prime Minister’s office, it was then deposited to the players’ bank accounts.
Radrodro said they wanted to get away from the past practice where players received their bonus upon arrival at the airport.
“We will be very disappointed if players are allowing the bonus payment to be a variable in their performance,” Radrodro said.
“If that’s the case as some have reportedly indicated that part of the reason they left was because of this bonus, that’s unfortunate.”
Radrodro said during the Dubai 7s win last year, the team was without a sponsor and FRU had made a commitment to pay bonus which they would do soon.
