The Samoan Rugby Union are facing the ire of the rugby world once again after the players threatened this week to strike, and boycott their international fixture with England on November 22nd.

In a letter to the IRB, seen by The Rugby Paper, senior players outlined their grievances:

As players, we’re unhappy with the incompetence of the Samoan Rugby Union in its current shape and under its current leadership.

We would like to notify you that we have called for the resignation of a number of senior officials within the Samoan Rugby Union and will be boycotting our game against England on the 22nd of November should our feelings not be addressed.

As a unified players group, it is felt that these issues are affecting our success on the field and we can no longer play under such poor leadership.

If it sounds dramatic, it isn’t. The Samoan Rugby Union has come in for criticism in the past, with allegations of funding mysteriously disappearing during their 2011 World Cup campaign made by players at the time and led by captain Mahonri Schwalger – the full details of which can be seen in the must-watch video by New Zealand’s 3News below.

Video credit: #TBI

If you don’t have time to watch the video, here are some of the key facts:

– More than 6 million Tala (the Samoan currency) were raised by Samoans across the world to support their 2011 Rugby World Cup campaign, yet the players were only paid 1,000 a week – despite the IRB picking up the bill for things like accommodation, meals, transport etc.
– Players turned up for training sessions to find they had no balls to play with
– In and before 2011, players had to pay their own air fares for test matches

So where did those millions of Tala go, if the players were paid a pittance and the IRB picked up most of the costs of a World Cup campaign anyway? The video includes a brief chat with SRU CEO Peter Schuster, who looks less than comfortable and dismisses the idea of going through a report produced by the then captain Mahonri Schwalger into the alleged deficiencies of the union.

Unsurprisingly, Schwalger, along with other key players who expressed their displeasure – like Seilala Mapusua and Eliota Fuimaono-Sapolu – were axed from the national set-up shortly after the 2011 tournament.

Samoa is not a wealthy country, and rugby is a big deal for them. The video outlines how families would donate what little they had in support of the national team, which makes the union’s lack of transparency into what happened to that money all the more galling.

The most frustrating thing is that, with this latest threat of a strike, nothing appears to have changed. The players are still not being represented in the manner that they should be, and if it has taken the threat of a strike for the IRB to sit up and take notice, then good on them.

The strike has allegedly been called off after “the IRB engaged in dialogue with the Samoa Rugby Union and the International Rugby Players’ Association to facilitate urgent and collaborative resolution”, but it a real shame that it had to take so drastic a measure for progress to be made.

It will be interesting to see how or if the situation is resolved because there is no doubt that Samoa could, given the right amount of funding (actually invested in the right areas), be a amongst the best teams in the world.

By Jamie Hosie
Follow Jamie on Twitter: @jhosie43

Photo by: Patrick Khachfe / Onside Images