money

More money for Manu Samoa

By Atama Raganivatu

Manu Samoa’s sponsorship deal with New Zealand merchant bankers Fay, Richwhite and Company could prove to be a major mile stone in the development of rugby union in the Pacific Islands region.

At face value, the agreement appears modest when compared with many others in world sport. Its real significance lies in what it may evolve into.

In the past, the Western Samoa Rugby Football Union has struggled desperately for money; being kept afloat largely through the benevolence of supporters, both rich and poor.

WSRFU chairman Alan Grey (a hote lier and son of the legendary Aggie Grey) is amongst its principal benefactors, hav ing reputedly donated over SUS7O,OOO of his own money into the union’s coffers, and American businessman Floyd Fitzpatrick, the chairman of Samoa Tropical Products Ltd, is believed to have sunk SUS 165,000 into a schools’ coach ing programme three years ago.

Less affluent fans have generously contributed by means of the famous wheelbarrow drives. The drives required

Manu Samoa players to push wheelbar rows through countless villages in Western and American Samoa while admirers filled them with cash and kind.

In 1993, these raised approximately US6Oc per head of population in the more prosperous United States territory, where the team’s fortunes are also followed with huge interests.

Despite all of this, the union’s debts have hovered around the SUS3OO,OOO mark for several years. Fay Richwhite’s involvement ensures that the WSRFU now has a more efficient funding base.

The first phase of the sponsorship, announced last October, provides Manu Samoa players with an income which will, hopefully, make them less inclined to join rugby league clubs or switch their allegiances to New Zealand, where most of them are based.

At the time, Bryan Williams, Manu Samoa’s coach stated: “This partnership with Fay Richwhite is exactly what we need because it gives us a helping hand to stand on our own two feet.

“In recent times, the very existence of Western Samoa as an internationally com petitive team has been under threat because of attempts from both profession al rugby and rugby league to poach our

players. “Our exclusion from the Super 12 competition made our task even more difficult since we are unable to promise our players the same benefits that they could get for playing for a Super 12 team.

For that reason, we are delighted that Fay Richwhite has agreed to support us so we can start to meet the costs of paying our players a fee, albeit a modest one, to play for Manu Samoa and to help us establish Manu Samoa Rugby Limited (the organi sation established to administer team mat ters) as a truly professional organisation.

“This will enable our players to con tinue with their rugby careers in New Zealand or in Western Samoa and still be rewarded for playing for their national team.”

All financial details of the sponsorship are confidential.

However, several New Zealand news papers have claimed that players will receive approximately SUS2O,OOO each if representing Manu Samoa throughout the year. This compares with the SUS 165,000 established All Blacks can anticipate for their endeavours in 1996. Plundering from overseas has decimated Western Samoan rugby union over recent years.

World-class performers Stephen Bachop, Frank Bunce, Alama leremmia.

Bryan Williams

Junior Tonu’u, Andrew Blowers and Dylan Mika have been lost to the Kiwis (the former three becoming All Blacks), while the almost equally gifted Shem

Tatupu, Apollo Perelini, George Harder,

Junior Paramore and Mike Umaga have been lured away by British and Australian

rugby league outfits.

If you add to these the names of Western Samoans who, early in their careers, decided New Zealand rugby union offered them better opportunities (Eroni Clarke, Va’aiga Tuigamala, Michael Jones and 010 Brown are the most prominent) the full potential of Manu Samoa becomes apparent.

This March saw the second stage in Fay Richwhite’s backing when they pro vided the funds necessary to appoint Bryan Williams and former U-Bix Photocopies executive Andrew Gaze as managing director and commercial devel opment manager respectively of Manu Samoa Rugby Limited.

Both are full-time positions and Williams gave up a legal practice to com mence his new career. Initially, it was believed Fay Richwhite would provide no support for Western Samoan rugby at grassroots level. However, that assump tion was proven incorrect in mid-May when a grant provided for the distribution of 500 rugby balls among schools, the printing of a coaching manual in Samoan,

the allotment of tackle bags and scrum machines to clubs and an injection of cash into the WSRFU’s youth development programme.

Fay Richwhite provides absolutely no

indications of how extensive its involve ment may eventually become. But sever al New Zealand media representatives have contemplated the possibility that the

company’s president. Sir Michael Fay,

will ultimately assume the role of team owner, much like the multi-millionaire businessmen who head all the major pro fessional sports clubs in North America.

If this transpires and Sir Michael con siders Manu Samoa to be a worthwhile business undertaking, we can anticipate him pumping money into areas such as talent-indentification programmes,

coaching courses and youth-development

schemes in the future. Most cruicially, though, he would have to provide the huge amounts required to persuade the cream of Western Samoan talent to remain loyal to their country.

By the same token, he will be entitled to pocket any profits his team might make. The fabulously wealthy Sir Michael is already renowned as a gener ous backer for projects which capture his imagination. It was he who contributed much of the financing for New Zealand’s unsuccessful America’s Cup campaigns in 1987, 1988 and 1992. Having laid the

foundations for the momentous Cup tri umph last year. Fay seems destined to be remembered as the Moses of Kiwi sport leading New Zealand yachting to within sight of its promised land but not com pleting the journey himself - unless he becomes closely associated with another victorious sporting adventure.

Should Sir Michael’s money enable Western Samoan rugby union to fully realise its capabilities and earn him a sig nificant return for his investment, then other entrepreneurs must inevitably look for similar opportunities elsewhere. The most obvious sources of these are Tongan and Fijian rugby union. Therefore, the Fay Richwhite sponsorship will be fol lowed with great interest throughout our

region.

The deal’s first objective appears to have been fufilled, as no Manu Samoa player has (defected since it was estab lished. Brian Lima, Alex Talea, To’o Vaega, George Leaupepe, Tu Nu’uali’itea, Pat Lam and Lio Falaniko would inevitably have been approached by either New Zealand rugby union or overseas rugby league organisations in recent months. But they, along with old warhorse Peter Ratialofa, were the star names in the Manu Samoa squad which was to commence a tour of New Zealand, Tonga and Fiji as Pacific Islands Monthly went to Press. ■

Sir Michael Fay