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Speaker 2: This is Sportsfix Howard by News Talks EDB.
Speaker 3: Here we go again, Welcome int to Sports Fix. It's
Speaker 3: a Tuesday. It's the eleventh of February twenty twenty five.
Speaker 3: My name is Darcy Walter Grave and this podcast is
Speaker 3: all you need to know about sport of a day,
Speaker 3: tied up and presented in a charming bundle. On this
Speaker 3: podcast will be joined by Gregor Paul First, the esteemed
Speaker 3: New Zealand Herald sports writer, specifically in the rugby space.
Speaker 3: Today in z Are announced they were taking a billionaire
Speaker 3: to court because he hasn't paid his bills and doesn't
Speaker 3: want to carry on honoring his contract. Ins and outs
Speaker 3: and ups and downs, and we'll talk about that with Gregor.
Speaker 3: Shortly joining us in the chamber is Clay Wilson. He's
Speaker 3: News Talk zbb's sports director. We've got a couple of
Speaker 3: issues to buy off and chew about, which we will
Speaker 3: do and he wants some opinion you I got some
Speaker 3: of that for you. Last night came Williamson scored a
Speaker 3: ton devon Conway didn't quite. The victory was secured, but
Speaker 3: it was a low strength South African side. How good
Speaker 3: are the black Caps looking ahead of the champions trophy?
Speaker 3: All that more still to come, so let's buckle in
Speaker 3: and do it.
Speaker 1: In other news.
Speaker 3: And in Sport today, black Caps bat Devon Conway's happy
Speaker 3: to be back in the runs after a lean patch.
Speaker 3: The left handed opener replaced the injured Ruchen Revenger in
Speaker 3: New Zealand's six wicket Tri Nations win of South Africa
Speaker 3: in Lahore. After scoring a fine ninety seven, Conway revealed
Speaker 3: he wasn't fussed about missing out on a century.
Speaker 4: I wasn't too stressed, you know. At the end of
Speaker 4: the day.
Speaker 5: For me, as long as we win the game, it's
Speaker 5: all that matters.
Speaker 4: I'm not really one for milestones or anything like that.
Speaker 5: So I'm just grateful that the boys got us across
Speaker 5: the line and was great to have a nice partnership
Speaker 5: with Cain.
Speaker 3: At the other end, NZIDA has launched legal action against
Speaker 3: sponsor Anios full breach of contract. Rugby editor Elliott Smith.
Speaker 6: Reports, London Telegraph reports, and he asks have failed to
Speaker 6: pay the first installment due this year to New Zealand
Speaker 6: Rugby at the halfway point of a six year deal
Speaker 6: to sponsor the teams in black, including the All Blacks.
Speaker 6: A statement released by INZIDA says they view the non
Speaker 6: payment as in theos exiting the six year agreement early
Speaker 6: and if no option but to launch legal proceedings. The
Speaker 6: deal worth eight million dollars a year to INSIDA, leaving
Speaker 6: a big financial shortfall to phil at short notice, and
Speaker 6: the ass who cut ties with the British America's Cup
Speaker 6: Syndicate last month have not commented.
Speaker 3: And finally, the Hurricanes have named four skippers for this
Speaker 3: season ahead Brad Shields, the Plessy Currefee, Billy Proctor and
Speaker 3: suffer Old Mooer. Coach Clark laid Law says it reflects
Speaker 3: the rotational selections expected through the campaign.
Speaker 7: Suffers already as an example, isn't playing at the start
Speaker 7: of the season, so you're going to the three. So
Speaker 7: maybe feels a little bit different in practice, it's not
Speaker 7: actually that different to what we've done the last couple
Speaker 7: of years.
Speaker 2: Needing a vex, We've got just the ticket. It's Sports
Speaker 2: Vex News Talks Ivy.
Speaker 3: The Fects welcomes now to the podcast in New Zealand
Speaker 3: Herald A Rugby scribe Gregor Paul Gregor, Hi, hi Dar.
Speaker 3: I trust you're well and are looking at the current
Speaker 3: situation with Jim radclifor should I say Surgeon and the
Speaker 3: All Blacks with some interest. The story out today around
Speaker 3: an eight million dollar deal that's been renegged on and
Speaker 3: there is no money being paid for services already exchanged,
Speaker 3: already rendered. This is a Is this a scary situation
Speaker 3: for the All Blacks?
Speaker 7: It's definitely not a good one. I don't know if
Speaker 7: it's scary. It's commercially important. Two things are commercially important here.
Speaker 7: One deal itself is reasonably significant for them. I think
Speaker 7: it's slightly closer to ten million a year that they're
Speaker 7: taking from Minios, which is not an insubstantial amount of
Speaker 7: money for them. And if they lose it, which they have,
Speaker 7: you know, that will need to be found somewhere else.
Speaker 7: So that's going to be challenge number one for them.
Speaker 4: But really the much bigger.
Speaker 7: Challenge here is protecting their reputation and putting a message
Speaker 7: out to the world that says, look, we can't have
Speaker 7: billionaires decide arbitrarily or unilaterally that they don't want to
Speaker 7: carry on with an existing deal for whatever reason, spurious
Speaker 7: at best, and we need to protect ourselves and we
Speaker 7: need to say that we won't be bullied, we won't
Speaker 7: be pushed around, and if you renege on a deal
Speaker 7: for no good reason, we're going to take you to
Speaker 7: court and we're going to let the law decide whether
Speaker 7: you have the right to do that or not.
Speaker 3: So in essence, this is posturing that they would like
Speaker 3: some form of result, because as you've seen, close on
Speaker 3: teen million dollars, that's quite the whole and dig their
Speaker 3: way out of. But it's very much a scene of saying,
Speaker 3: don't with us, and we're going to go through the law.
Speaker 3: This is a stance.
Speaker 7: I think primarily, certainly initially it's a message to not
Speaker 7: only to any OS, but to any other future potential
Speaker 7: commercial partners that this is where things will end up
Speaker 7: if we do not abide by the contract and if
Speaker 7: we do not you know, live by the law. I mean,
Speaker 7: anyone knows once you once you go to court proceedings,
Speaker 7: you don't know what the outcomes are going to be.
Speaker 4: In a case like that, they will argue, any us.
Speaker 7: Will argue that whatever that you know, they were let
Speaker 7: down by the terms of the agreement, they'll say and said,
Speaker 7: oh I didn't fulfill them, and said I will say
Speaker 7: it did, and a court will try and determine, you know,
Speaker 7: who's right, who's wrong, and what the solution might be.
Speaker 4: Now, that could take a long time.
Speaker 7: That could rack up, you know, significant legal fees for
Speaker 7: the union with limited possibility of what they will get
Speaker 7: in return or what a settlement might look like with
Speaker 7: any of So you're going to weigh up the risk
Speaker 7: and the reward. You know what that might look like,
Speaker 7: and how long do you want this to carry on for,
Speaker 7: you know, before you're willing to pull the pin. And
Speaker 7: you get the impression that when you're a billionaire and
Speaker 7: you've got sort of infinite debt to your pocket, you're
Speaker 7: probably going to gamble that an organization like nz R
Speaker 7: isn't going to want to have a prolonged, expensive legal
Speaker 7: battle with you because they can't afford to do that
Speaker 7: in the way that you can.
Speaker 3: That's why I said, scary. We know that there's not
Speaker 3: a lot of cash on the ground for n z R.
Speaker 3: Should they engage. I suppose they can walk if it
Speaker 3: gets too expensive, But this could be long and pricey Yeah.
Speaker 4: It could be.
Speaker 7: And maybe what they're hoping is by filing the court action,
Speaker 7: by going public with it, maybe that will bring any
Speaker 7: ofsen Sir Jim to the table to say, look, okay,
Speaker 7: what would it take for this to come out of
Speaker 7: the courts?
Speaker 4: Can we make a settlement here? What would you agree to?
Speaker 7: You know, maybe they agree a full and final payment
Speaker 7: that says, okay, you don't want to be a partner anymore.
Speaker 7: How about you pay you eighteen months of the contract
Speaker 7: and we'll let you out the other eighteen months.
Speaker 4: It's fifty fifty percent of what.
Speaker 7: You as and we could we do a deal round
Speaker 7: about that sort of price point and leave it in
Speaker 7: a state that doesn't take both organizations time, effort, money
Speaker 7: and cause them reputational damage.
Speaker 3: Gregor Paul joining us? Gregor, how long does it take
Speaker 3: to replace someone like Anios? They've got a three year deal,
Speaker 3: they haven't paid up for service has already been rendered
Speaker 3: by inz R. I'm talking about that in a minute.
Speaker 3: But how do they cover this? And how long does
Speaker 3: it take to get a Jersey sponsor? Because what they've
Speaker 3: got at to make them they've got altrad and they've
Speaker 3: got Anyos This is fairly rare territory, isn't it.
Speaker 7: Well, both Ultrad and Inios were actually signed on sixty
Speaker 7: year deals in twenty They began in twenty twenty two.
Speaker 7: So look, it took the better part of two years
Speaker 7: to secure both of those partners. That's the sort of
Speaker 7: length of time it takes to run a global tender
Speaker 7: for deals with the size this magnitude roughly, that's how
Speaker 7: long it was. So my understanding is that even though
Speaker 7: if you look at the front of Jersey Sponsor, which
Speaker 7: is all tried, even though that's in play until twenty
Speaker 7: twenty seven, end of that, they will begin the process
Speaker 7: now of putting that out to tender, because that's how
Speaker 7: long it will take to secure the next partner or
Speaker 7: or in you with I'll trad if that's what it
Speaker 7: is that they're going to do. So that's the sort
Speaker 7: of time frame that you'd be looking at.
Speaker 3: So they'll be ond that now. I'm presuming that they
Speaker 3: know after they walked, after any I said now we're
Speaker 3: not doing this anymore, they would have put everything in motion.
Speaker 7: Well, I think it depends only if you're talking about
Speaker 7: formal or informal. My understanding would be that there would
Speaker 7: be informal conversations going all the time with potential partners,
Speaker 7: because that's what they should be doing, the commercial guys
Speaker 7: sort of sounding out people not just about front of
Speaker 7: but this, that and the other.
Speaker 4: So they will have a network of people that they've
Speaker 4: been talking to.
Speaker 7: And look, yeah, I think from why I can gather,
Speaker 7: Inyos were signaling late last year that this was a possibility,
Speaker 7: that they that they were struggling with the partnership for
Speaker 7: whatever reason. I don't know the answer to that why,
Speaker 7: But I don't think that the letter that arrived at
Speaker 7: the end of January this year to formally announce that
Speaker 7: Inos reneging on the partnership came as a massive surprise
Speaker 7: to New Zealand Rugby, so that they've probably had a
Speaker 7: couple of months head start aware that this is where
Speaker 7: it would probably end up. Whether that's any use to
Speaker 7: them or not a couple of months don't know, but
Speaker 7: at least now they've got clarity that they're definitely going
Speaker 7: to be without Aniols, and they've got a bit of
Speaker 7: clock ticking, which is never a bad thing when you're
Speaker 7: trying to do a deal. We've actually got some a
Speaker 7: real time frame now to move as quickly as you
Speaker 7: can to get something else on the table.
Speaker 3: So will we see ineos on the shorts and the
Speaker 3: training gear this year? We have to wait to the
Speaker 3: court case finishes. How does that operate?
Speaker 4: Do you know? No, they won't my understanding again, they
Speaker 4: won't appear.
Speaker 7: So the invoice was sent to any else at the
Speaker 7: end of last year for the second half of what
Speaker 7: you were twenty five, So when were in second half
Speaker 7: of twenty four. That invoice was due on the first
Speaker 7: of January. That hasn't been paid, so you would now
Speaker 7: say their account is in arrears.
Speaker 4: Within say it are. So there's two issues here.
Speaker 7: One they haven't paid for services delivered that relate to
Speaker 7: twenty twenty four, and now they've cut the deal arbitrarily,
Speaker 7: you know, actually cut that three years ahead of its
Speaker 7: natural expiry date. So that's the second part of the
Speaker 7: legal challenge. So I guess if nothing else new, Zealand
Speaker 7: Rugby would expect that invoice that they filed late last year,
Speaker 7: they would expect that to be paid minimum, you know,
Speaker 7: as part of this action.
Speaker 3: Next stop Riard. I say that were pung firmly in cheek,
Speaker 3: but you never know Gregor Paul. It is a pleasure.
Speaker 3: Thanks very much for your time.
Speaker 4: Thank you.
Speaker 2: This is Sportsfix, your daily does of sports news, how
Speaker 2: news talks.
Speaker 3: On the face of it, there was a tremendous win
Speaker 3: overnight to the black Caps. But if you did slightly deeper,
Speaker 3: actually you don't even have to scratch the surface. Did
Speaker 3: it really mean anything?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 3: And that was the thought that went through my head
Speaker 3: at one in the morning, when I was still up
Speaker 3: watching it. What am I doing here? This is a
Speaker 3: tri series that means nothing except a bit of a
Speaker 3: warm up run. But I'm an addict when it comes
Speaker 3: to cricket and it was on, so I watched it
Speaker 3: until sense prevailed. There were some positives. Great to see
Speaker 3: Daddy Conway back in the runs again three short of
Speaker 3: a tone, dare there was a massive partnership. Amazing to
Speaker 3: see Kine Williamson not only not chup seven thousand one
Speaker 3: Day International runs but chop himself yet enough the century
Speaker 3: watching O'Rourke scare everybody in sight, although the scariest thing
Speaker 3: for me was the way the subcontinental commentators chose to
Speaker 3: pronounce his name. Oh Rourke's not that hard, really, is it?
Speaker 3: And of course Tom Latham another duck. That's three in
Speaker 3: a row. That was all so scary. In the wash up,
Speaker 3: the black Caps had a win, but they had a
Speaker 3: win against let's say it, substandard opposition. They had four debutants.
Speaker 3: One of those debutantes scored one hundred and fifty runs.
Speaker 3: That's the highest one danged national total on debut by anyone.
Speaker 3: We got smacked by a rookie and then when it
Speaker 3: comes to scoring the required runs, we got it done,
Speaker 3: but only just again against a team of rookies. So
Speaker 3: what do we actually learn out of that game? Yep,
Speaker 3: we had the wherewifore to actually win, but really we
Speaker 3: should have smashed that. Let's see what happens in the
Speaker 3: final of the Try series and maybe we can glean
Speaker 3: slightly more out of cricket, which, for all intentsive purposes
Speaker 3: is pointless. But it's cricket, so you'll watch it anyway.
Speaker 2: The chamber is now in session on Sportsfix.
Speaker 3: Joining me in the chamber now is the Director of Sport.
Speaker 3: For news talks, there'd be mister Clay Wilson. Greetings to you, sir,
Speaker 3: Welcome into the cave.
Speaker 5: Hello Darcy, thank you. Always a pleasure to dive in here.
Speaker 3: Interesting story released today that we were I suppose flagged
Speaker 3: last week about four captains being named for the Hurricanes. Now,
Speaker 3: Co Captaincy was one that a lot of people struggled with.
Speaker 3: He's jumped the third and gone for four. Clarks made
Speaker 3: an interesting call here, where do you use it on
Speaker 3: this one?
Speaker 5: I just said to you off here, and I have
Speaker 5: to say it while I'm here. A great line from
Speaker 5: one of our colleagues, Adam Koober this morning who wrote
Speaker 5: the story four Plumes of Smoke Hurricanes HQ, which I
Speaker 5: thought was a brilliant way to kind of first address
Speaker 5: this story. Yeah, four cokept I.
Speaker 3: Told on what's he saying that? Basically that Wellington is
Speaker 3: the Vatican City. That's what he's saying. He's saying, this
Speaker 3: is God's team, is the Hurricanes.
Speaker 5: That's fresh after all. I'm happy with that. You might
Speaker 5: have a few more disputes with that. I'm more than
Speaker 5: happy with that analogy. Yeah, like we've seen co Captaincy before.
Speaker 5: I'm thinking I've seen three, but I can't recall four.
Speaker 5: And I think Clark Laidlawa is kind of well aware
Speaker 5: that how people are going to perceive this and has
Speaker 5: been it pains to explain that it's not how it appears,
Speaker 5: and there is solid logic behind it in terms of
Speaker 5: the players that they've got in their leadership group and
Speaker 5: that some of them might need to not necessarily be
Speaker 5: starting each week. So this way it gives them the
Speaker 5: ability to pick two co captains each week.
Speaker 3: And players get broken, let's face it, and players get suspended,
Speaker 3: let's face it, and players get egged off because they're
Speaker 3: all blacks, let's face it. So it is quite You.
Speaker 5: Understand the logic behind it as well as I do.
Speaker 5: But to me, I think, for you know, we're seeing
Speaker 5: a lot of kind of fan initiatives in Super Rugby
Speaker 5: on the back of the new commission coming in. We've
Speaker 5: seen the fantasy competition, a few other things happening, and
Speaker 5: I think for fans, fans want to know who the
Speaker 5: captain is and leadership groups are. Leadership groups are fine,
Speaker 5: all well and good, and every team nowadays is not
Speaker 5: going to have one leader, right, They're going to have three, four, five,
Speaker 5: six leaders in a team. But just name one captain.
Speaker 5: That's for me, Just name one captain to.
Speaker 3: Me quatering the disappointment when the Hurricanes get rolled in
Speaker 3: the final right, they've got to word each and their
Speaker 3: step down speech for the way that goes. And there's
Speaker 3: also the theory that everyone gets a certificate for participations.
Speaker 3: So next week the Islanders are going to say our
Speaker 3: whole team captains.
Speaker 5: You know that, Oprah Winfrey meme, you get a you
Speaker 5: get a captain c umband and you get a captain's ben.
Speaker 5: And that's the first thing that came to my mind.
Speaker 5: Look like I say, I understand internally the logic. I
Speaker 5: just think wonder, I wonder if if it was me,
Speaker 5: whether I would say internally talk about it and have
Speaker 5: the system externally say so and so is our captain.
Speaker 3: The fans need someone to blame someone, and someone like
Speaker 3: the one of the broadest shoulders. Let's get away from that.
Speaker 3: Let's get to a slightly more serious rugby story. We
Speaker 3: know that Sir Jim Ratcliffe, he's not broke. He's a billionaire.
Speaker 3: It takes a lot of time to run out of
Speaker 3: a billion dollars, right or a billion pounds. But he's
Speaker 3: decided to ah bother paying me all blacks. What's the point? Yeah,
Speaker 3: so they wore my jersey. It was last year. It
Speaker 3: doesn't matter. In fact, I don't want to play games anymore.
Speaker 3: I'm out on gone, insid Ira gone, We'll see you
Speaker 3: in court. That's brave from enz Art because fighting a
Speaker 3: billionaire in court probably not the greatest man. But they
Speaker 3: had no choice, did they?
Speaker 5: Yeah? And you say brave, and I tend to agree,
Speaker 5: and not necessarily from a from a financial standpoint, more
Speaker 5: from a time standpoint, because to me, a legal process
Speaker 5: like this, against a company like this, against a man
Speaker 5: like that who has so much money, this is a
Speaker 5: legal process that could drag on forever. But I guess
Speaker 5: they sort of left with no other option. You know,
Speaker 5: they may get if they win, they get their they
Speaker 5: get their money back, they get you know, all their
Speaker 5: legal costs paid for. But how long does that process take?
Speaker 3: Said?
Speaker 5: Yeah? Like I said, I suppose they had no other option,
Speaker 5: did they? I mean, how else could insid Are have
Speaker 5: approached this?
Speaker 3: Do you think rolled over and said, we're really sorry,
Speaker 3: would you like some more and feed them back money?
Speaker 3: You see, Jim is, you know, plainly an upset man.
Speaker 3: He's got us problems with this America's Cup team. That's
Speaker 3: what it is. He's got as proverbials in a Tangleester United,
Speaker 3: they well, I know if we won't even go to that,
Speaker 3: you're worse than the Glazers. What all that was from
Speaker 3: the fan base? And who took it over? Nazi America's
Speaker 3: Cup team New Zealand beat him, and he's just packing
Speaker 3: a hisssy foot because his money got speed and got
Speaker 3: sunk off the coast of Spain. So he's like, that's it. Oh,
Speaker 3: it's a lively theory. I could get funny anything at
Speaker 3: the moment, you know, anything to do that. But they
Speaker 3: are in a situation where as Gregor Paul pointed out
Speaker 3: to us at the start of the program, they can't
Speaker 3: do nothing. They have to be seen to do something
Speaker 3: they otherwise everybody is going to go ah.
Speaker 5: And eight million dollars to Sir Jim Ratcliffe is a
Speaker 5: lot different than eight million dollars to New Zealand Rugby.
Speaker 5: That's a lot of money. We know about the financial
Speaker 5: situation the game in this country has been in in
Speaker 5: recent years and is still in. That's not an insignificant
Speaker 5: amount of money. And this is money that goes into
Speaker 5: all the New Zealand, the teams in black, as they say,
Speaker 5: the all Blacks, black Ferns, the seven Sides, the junior teams,
Speaker 5: I would assume, So what gets what gets kind of
Speaker 5: crossed off the wish list for this year at least
Speaker 5: because you don't you think you're not going to see
Speaker 5: that money for even if you do win in court.
Speaker 5: How does that affect the All Blacks? How does it
Speaker 5: affect the Black fans, the sevens teams do?
Speaker 3: How does it to support staff, the hotels in first
Speaker 3: class air tickets off to conferences on the other side of.
Speaker 5: The world for the fish heir, Well, these are the
Speaker 5: questions we wanted to ask New Zealand Rugby answer. They've
Speaker 5: put out a quite a strongly wirded statement, but you know,
Speaker 5: as they is there will sometimes have decided not to
Speaker 5: put anyone up to talk about it. But that's the
Speaker 5: first question that came to my mind, And yeah, where
Speaker 5: where does where does the where does that kind of
Speaker 5: that money get cut off the wish list for twenty
Speaker 5: twenty five at least because yeah, likes going to play.
Speaker 3: I'm more interested in what happened between Jim and the
Speaker 3: All Blacks, why he actually pulled in the first place.
Speaker 3: You sign something up goodwill, it promotes your petrol chemical company,
Speaker 3: so they knew what they were doing it, but to
Speaker 3: walk away not pay it seems.
Speaker 5: It's very odd. It seems like with everything that's going
Speaker 5: on with Sir Jim Ratcliffe with the America's Cup thing,
Speaker 5: like you say, his involvement now with Manchester United, there's
Speaker 5: got to be some other factor at play here with
Speaker 5: that company, with himself to make them because it's it's
Speaker 5: too much of a coincidence for the America's Cup and
Speaker 5: New Zealand rugby thing to happen around the same time
Speaker 5: and then withdraw from those deals. So who knows. Maybe
Speaker 5: maybe down the track we're going to find out, but
Speaker 5: for now it's a bit of a mystery as to
Speaker 5: why they would do this at all.
Speaker 3: Tell im, I'm pointed out to him and Jimmy spent
Speaker 3: all this money and you just got your name across
Speaker 3: the ass of the All Blacks. Maybe finally he worked
Speaker 3: out how silly he looked at me.
Speaker 4: That's it.
Speaker 3: I'm out, I'm gone, and on that you're out, You're gone.
Speaker 3: Clay Wilson, Director of Sport for News Talk CB, thanks
Speaker 3: very much for.
Speaker 5: Your time, no worries thanks to us.
Speaker 1: Dissecting the sporting agenda.
Speaker 2: It's Sports Fix with Jason fine and Darcy Waldgrave.
Speaker 3: The habit Sports Fixed for another that day being Tuesday,
Speaker 3: the eleventh of Fab twenty twenty five. I'm Darcy walder Grave.
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