Rugby Australia to protect Wallabies' budget despite mass job cuts
Interim Rugby Australia chief executive Rob Clarke has stressed the importance of protecting Wallabies funding in the future and confirmed new coach Dave Rennie won’t be required to take a five per cent pay cut asked of other senior staff members.
A day after announcing that roughly one-third of full-time RA staff would lose their job in coming weeks, as well as another 30 casual workers, Clarke has elaborated on the cuts and said he was not surprised by the financial state of the organisation since replacing Raelene Castle last month.
Interim Rugby Australia chief executive Rob Clarke addresses the media a day after announcing widespread job cuts. Credit:Getty
In order to reduce RA's wage bill by $5.5 million, 47 of 142 staff have been let go; a decision Clarke said was extremely difficult but “prudent” in the current landscape.
Whilst not going into details, Clarke said all areas of the business would be affected but made it clear it was imperative to give the Wallabies every chance to return to their former glory.
The Wallabies have slumped to seventh in the world after bowing out in the quarter-finals of last year’s Rugby World Cup.
“A key part of our financial underpinning is a successful Wallabies,” Clarke told reporters at RA headquarters on Tuesday morning. “It’s not everything but it’s certainly a key part of it. We’ll be protecting that as much as possible.
“We need to try and protect as much of our high performance area as possible that is going to help get the Wallabies where they need to get to as a world ranking.
“Dave Rennie is a key part of that and I am delighted with how Dave has been engaging on that task since signing up and I think he is going to make a very big positive difference.”
Pressed on whether Australia’s sevens and Wallaroos programs would be impacted - there are major questions marks over their future funding - Clarke said, “we want to support as much of our national programs as possible”.
Clarke has already forecast more cuts as part of a second restructure to be rolled out in coming weeks in association with member unions.
“We’re looking at the high performance area as a stand-alone operation at the moment and with [director of rugby] Scott Johnson and other management staff, we’re looking at how we can deliver high performance across the country more efficiently as well and that will be in combination with our member unions,” Clarke said.
“It comes down to prioritising the most important functions of our business. I think the staff base we have going forward will still enable us to focus on the priority areas of delivering what we do as a national body and supporting our member unions where we need to support them but there will be trade-offs.
“We will have to look at programs and certain initiatives that we might want to have implemented that maybe we can’t for now.”
As revealed by the Herald at the weekend, RA won’t require Rennie, who begins his new role on July 1, to take a pay cut despite remaining staff being asked to do so.
“Dave hasn’t started yet, so he will be excluded from that,” Clarke said. “All other staff over a certain threshold will be invited to take a five per cent pay cut. It’s a legal requirement and so we’ll be following the law there. I’m confident that the staff coming back will want to help to continue to play their part in the financial sustainability of the game.
“We don’t anticipate a full workforce coming back until October.”
Clarke confirmed the National Rugby Championship would not take place this year and that discussions were well advanced for a fourth Bledisloe Cup match to take place between the Wallabies and All Blacks, with two fixtures in each country.
He also said Australia was likely to host New Zealand, South Africa and Argentina this year in a revised Rugby Championship held in a "bubble" anywhere in Australia.