Updated: 6:22am – The Samoa Rugby Union is close to filing for bankruptcy.
Samoa Rugby chief executive officer Faleomavaega Vincent Fepuleai told the Daily Mailnewspaper that the national team’s future is under serious threat from mounting debts, and that they are close to insolvency.
He said without desperate support from the Samoan Government the SRU would not survive- a point referenced by the Prime Minister and SRU chair Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi in the Union’s 2016 Annual Report.
“I wouldn’t like to speak about the worst-case scenario. We don’t want to go down the road where there is no Samoan national team because our people have a lot of passion.
This must not happen,” Faleomavaega said.
“This year’s tour is going ahead as planned. If we can’t afford to put together a team then there will be no tours. World Rugby give us funding but we still need a system of revenue sharing. Money is at the centre of everything. The economic model is absolutely wrong.”
The Samoa Rugby Union has requested a fee of $US200, 000 for taking part in next month’s test against England at Twickenham, in an attempt to ease their financial problems, but World Rugby guidelines do not require host countries to share in their match-day revenues, unless the test is scheduled outside the international window.
-Fiji Sun
