Bill Pulver will stay on as chief executive of the Australian Rugby Union (ARU), but an emergency general meeting upheld the governing body’s decision to cut one of Australia’s Super Rugby franchises. Pulver claimed he would step down from the ARU’s top job if Tuesday’s meeting in Sydney resolved that change was required, but board members elected to maintain the status quo for now.
ARU chairman Cameron Clyne confirmed that Pulver had not been challenged at an “orderly” three-hour meeting, but said Australian Rugby was no closer to confirming whether it will be the Western Force or Melbourne Rebels who will be axed as part of SANZAAR’s move to a 15-team competition for the 2018 Super Rugby season.
“The majority of members have voted in support of going from five teams to four,” Clyne said. “The motion that did pass was to facilitate a discussion around the establishment of a Super Rugby commission. We’ve had that commission in the past so we’re very comfortable to have that discussion and work out as to whether we do establish that in the future.”
That third motion had been described as “nonsense” by Pulver only a day earlier.
Pressure has been mounting on the ARU and its top executive since April, when the governing body revealed that one of the Rebels or Force would be cut from the Super Rugby competition within 72 hours – a bold announcement that prompted legal action and a bitter, prolonged and so far unresolved battle between those clubs and the ARU.
It was the Rugby Union Players’ Association and Victorian Rugby Union who had called for an EGM last month, after they were both left frustrated by the ongoing uncertainty in naming which Australian franchise would be cut. As part of the plan, two of South Africa’s six Super Rugby teams will be axed.
On Monday, Pulver had told Fairfax media the ARU job – in which he succeeded John O’Neill in early 2013 – was the only sports administration role he would ever fill, adding: “If the members of Australian rugby felt the game would be better suited with me gone, they don’t need to call an EGM. I’m here for the good of the game. If and when it’s time for me to leave, I will leave quite happily.”
Aside from Australia’s Rugby World Cup final appearance in 2015, Pulver’s administration has also overseen a dramatic drop in fortunes for the national side, with the Wallabies slumping in both rankings and reputation in his time. Not helping the mood was Australia’s 24-19 defeat at the hands of Scotland on Saturday – only the third occasion in 35 years that the Wallabies had tasted defeat in that rivalry.
The ARU’s legal skirmishes with the Rebels and Force mean they will enter mediation with the Rebels later in June over a damages claim, and an arbitration hearing with the Force on 31 July. Former Wallabies coaches Bob Dwyer and Alan Jones both called for 57-year-old Pulver to stand down over the past year, but he remains contracted in the role until April 2018.
