Pacific leaders lobby Australia for rugby cash splash after NRL deal

Pacific leaders have signed off on a proposal for Australia to deliver $150 million to rugby union in the region amid concerns their national sport could be marginalised by the federal government’s bankrolling of rugby league to counter China’s ambitions.

The bumper sports diplomacy deal is being sought by Fiji, Tonga and Samoa after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese directed $600 million towards the introduction of the Papua New Guinea Chiefs to the NRL and the development of rugby league across the Pacific.

The taxpayer package for the NRL came with an unannounced assurance that PNG retains Australia and other Pacific countries as its policing and security partners, allowing Canberra to withdraw the funding if such an agreement is struck with Beijing. Australia and PNG have since strengthened relations, signing a landmark defence treaty last October.

Fiji Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka last year indicated a desire to work towards a security pact with Australia, but according to sources with knowledge about the Pacific nations’ rugby union proposal it does not contain a security element.

Australian diplomatic sources have previously been of the view that any eventual deal with Fiji, Tonga and Samoa would need to include such a component.

As with PNG, the influence of China looms in the background. The Fiji Rugby Union last year signed a memorandum of understanding with the Chinese Rugby Football Association, the Tonga Rugby Union has explored a partnership with Beijing, which paid for its $40 million national sports complex, and China has offered to build Samoa a new national stadium.

According to sources, the Pacific islands’ submission to the Australian government includes a joint statement from Rabuka and the prime ministers of Tonga and Samoa, but they are being lodged individually.

Samoa was the first off the mark on Wednesday, and Fiji and Tonga were expected to follow suit by Thursday.

Under the proposed $150 million package, which would be split over five years, the countries have a vision to establish a Pacific rugby championships featuring teams from Fiji, Tonga and Samoa, and possibly Australian states.

Other initiatives would include setting up formal pathways for players to transition from school rugby union to the elite level, increasing access to professional coaching at academies and revitalising local sevens rugby tournaments to prepare players for the world stage.

There would also be a focus on community development programs, using rugby union as a platform for working on life skills and raising awareness about issues such as domestic violence and drugs, as well as climate change.

The Australian government funding would be managed by Rugby Australia, just as the Australian Rugby League Commission is overseeing the injection of money into PNG and rugby league in the region.

The Albanese government has set aside $250 million of its 10-year, $600 million NRL package for the development of the game in the Pacific. More than half of NRL players come from a Pasifika background and the region is seen as a key production line for talent.

“[The NRL funding is] perceived as a huge threat to the development of rugby in the country, but this funding would help us stabilise the game and also assist in areas where we have never been to before,” said Fiji Rugby Union chief executive Koli Sewabu.

Fiji are ninth, one place below the Wallabies, in the men’s rugby union world rankings but Tonga and Samoa are rated 19th and 20th respectively.

They have fallen from their glory days when they could beat top-10 teams, with Samoa having made the quarter-finals of the Rugby World Cup in 1991 and 1995, and Tonga having defeated eventual finalists France at the 2011 World Cup.

While they have gone backwards, the national rugby league teams of Tonga and Samoa have become forces, aided by eligibility rules that permit their Australian-raised players from also taking the field in the code’s showpiece State of Origin series.

Tonga Rugby Union chief Aisea Aholelei said enhanced support for rugby union from Australia would be the “lift and the morale boost that we need”.

“We are still the national sport, and we are still the No.1 sport in the Pacific … us, Fiji and Samoa,” he said.

“There will be that threat from rugby league here and obviously, they do have that funding. But we have everything else, so if we work together, we can continue to grow.”

The Australian government gives about $1 million a year to the Fijian Drua men’s and women’s teams, which compete in the Super Rugby competitions and is in the third year of a four-year, $14.2 million partnership with Rugby Australia to support high-performance rugby in the Pacific.

Australia also assists rugby union through other multi-sport Pacific programs, but they are dwarfed by its backing of rugby league.

“Australia is part of the Pacific family, and we listen to Pacific Islands governments. Any proposal would be carefully considered,” a spokesperson for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said.

“The Australian Government is aware Fiji, Tonga and Samoa are working on a proposal for greater investment in rugby union in the region but we have not yet received a formal request.”