Rugby Australia board members heading for the exits at the AGM on March 30 shouldn’t play a part in the body’s broadcast negotiations, former Australian Rugby Union chief executive John O’Neill says.
“The negotiations can be put on ice for six to seven weeks and then the new governing body can do its own due diligence and can get on with it,” O’Neill told the Sydney Morning Herald on Wednesday.
O’Neill said it was not right that a “lame duck board” would be involved in preparing RA’s five-year broadcast deal that will run until the end of 2025.
“It wouldn’t be allowed to happen in corporate life. How can the incoming new board be left vulnerable to inheriting such a critical aspect of the game’s revenue?,” he told the newspaper.
O’Neill was head of the ARU in 1995-2004 and again in 2007-2012.