Folau saga: RA counting cost of Castle error
UPDATE: Rugby Australia is holding its collective breath, as the protracted Israel Folau saga continues to drag on.
The Sydney Morning Herald revealed on Thursday that Folau’s future will not be known until at least Friday.
The Aussie newspaper reported that after the panel charged with deciding his fate has delayed the decision for at least another 24 hours.
An announcement was initially expected on Thursday, but the Herald reported the panel notified Rugby Australia that they would not have a decision until Friday.
The newspaper did not reveal the reason for the delay.
The panel – consisting of Kate Eastman, John West and John Boultbee – found Folau guilty of a high-level breach of RA’s code of conduct on May 7.
Meanwhile, the SMH also revealed that Rugby Australia is beginning to count the cost of an error by Chief Executive Officer Raelene Castle.
The newspaper reported that her mistakes have left the financially troubled union exposed in the Folau saga.
New Zealander Castle, appointed as Rugby Australia’s CEO in late 2017, has faced a nightmare situation after the game’s highest profile player continued to stand his ground in what he feels is an onslaught on his Christianity.
The Sydney Morning Herald strongly inferred that it is a nightmare heavily of Castle’s own making.
The pressure has increased on Castle, after former player boss and Waratahs Chief Executive Greg Harris criticised her management.
Under a headline “Contract debacle that left rugby vulnerable in Folau storm”, senior rugby writer Georgina Robinson pinpointed two key errors in the contract negotiations, after the controversy around Folau first erupted last year.
“Castle and her executive team, including head of player contracting Nick Taylor, will not escape scrutiny for their contributions to the crisis that has gripped the code since Folau’s April 10 Instagram post,” the newspaper reported.
In his Instagram post, Folau said: “Those that are living in Sin will end up in Hell unless you repent. Jesus Christ loves you and is giving you time to turn away from your sin and come to him.”
A picture accompanying the post referred to “drunks, homosexuals, adulterers, liars, fornicators, thieves, atheists and idolaters.”
However, the media at large focussed mainly of the ‘homosexuals’ portion of the picture and largely ignore the rest of the post.
He also said: “Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these , adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revelings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. Galatians 5:19-21 KJV”
According to the Herald, the decision not to include a social media clause has left RA “exposed and on shaky legal ground” in the ensuing storm.
Castle and Folau met as the Wallabies were building up to the test against England in London last November.
Castle wanted him to sign an additional clause to his contract, signed a month earlier, that would prevent him from bringing the game into disrepute via social media.
“Castle wanted to cement their relationship after a rocky year but, crucially, also to talk him around to agreeing to something someone had forgotten to include in the original contract Folau had signed on October 10,” the SMH reported.
However, she backed out at the last minute.
Source: Sydney Morning Herald.
