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David Moffett: Former NZ Rugby CEO on the body reporting a $19.5 million deficit · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Record income for ins. It are not enough though, to
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: save them from their third annual deficit in a row. Yesterday,
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: the chair David Kirkainfield nineteen and a half million dollar loss.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: This is despite bringing in two hundred and eighty five
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: million and revenue. That's their highest ever income. David Moffatt
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: is the former INSID Rugby CEO with me this morning, David,
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: good morning.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: Good morning. This is an early one mate.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you for being up with us. What do
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: you make What do you make of these numbers?
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: Well, I suppose they've got I got some decent amount
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: of cash in the bank. Three losses in a row.
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: I think I managed to a round about seventy five
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: million dollars and I can't I was struggling just to
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: remember how much money they got from the Silver Lake deal.
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: I think it was close to three hundred million altogether.
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: So they've been burning cash, you know, at a rate
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: of knots. One's got to wait and see whether that
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: will stop. But what this is is symptomatic of rugby
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: around the world, and it's professional rugby is now living
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: in quicksand no matter where you look in the world,
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: it's in real trouble. I mean recently you saw the
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: Cardiff Blues go into receivership and there's been taken over
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: by the Welsh Rugby Union. I'm not quite sure what
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: they will bring to the tape table. And then you
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: just see you've had well. Most of the Super rugby
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: teams are always perilously poised in their finances. Most recently
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: the Hurricanes apparently approached through ends, are for a one
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: million dollar dailout and the games in real trouble financially.
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: What about how much they're paying the players. Do you
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: think that the salaries are too high or what are
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: they spending their money?
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: I think there are too many teams, to be perfectly
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: honest with you, and you know, here's here's some things
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: that I would do. But at New Zealand Rugby I
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: would firstly, I would really cut the size of the administration.
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: You know, I don't know what it is now, but
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: it was about two hundred at one stage. We used
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: to do at different times, but at the beginning of
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: the professional rugby we had around about thirty three thirty
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: four when I was the chief executive and we did
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: a pretty good job. I thought, that's the first thing,
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: and do the second thing I would do would be
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: cut a professional team. There are too many teams in
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: New Zealand for the for the number of quality players
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: that we have. That would be a very difficult one,
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: wouldn't it. You know, But that's no different to any
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: business who had to make that. You've got to be vert,
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: you've got to be brutal. So yeah, I don't know
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: to be perfectly honest with you, but needs to happen.
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: Australia needs to cut another team. They can't afford four
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: professional teams and so it goes. I mean, the English
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: Premiership is still in trouble financially and they've gone down
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: from fourteen to ten teams, but it's still in trouble.
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: Nine out of the ten teams make a loss every
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: year and it's not it's just not sustainable. You know.
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: You can't go on like that.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: And not when your third year in the hole for
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: nineteen and a half million dollars. David, appreciate your time
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: this morning, David Moffatt, former n Z Rugby CEO. For
• 3:34
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