Fiji Rugby Union (FRU) interim Trustees chairman Peter Mazey has confirmed that 26 member unions have voted in favour of a new structural change during the Special General Meeting (SGM) at Novotel Suva Lami Bay Convention Centre on Saturday.

The new structural change for the FRU includes a newly formed managerial company called Fiji Rugby Union Limited.

“Our charity will be the watchdog of the whole thing,” he said.

“”The Drua and Counter Ruck, our 49 per cent ownership of that entity will come under the charity just like our properties that includes Rugby House and the High-Performance Units.”

Mazey said the new commercial FRU structure would run for the next 20 to 30 years.

“We went out to all the unions for meetings for about two to three months with the assistance from World Rugby as they funded a consultant,” he said.

ASSISTANCE 

“New Zealand Rugby has assisted us as they are going through the same sort of review. There are only certain things within our new article that come out of the New Zealand review like the nominations committee.”

Mazey had indicated that rugby is considered a professional operation.

“We need to make sure that we have the very best people to run it not just the management and CEO (chief executive officer) but at board level,” he said.

“We now call the annual general meeting (AGM) in 45 days.” Mazey said the FRU new board of directors and chairman would be elected in the AGM.

“The new structure is totally union orientated as the unions will nominate and vote for who they want to be in each position,” he said.

“There will no longer be a government or a Prime Minister’s nominee and a World Rugby appointed as its just Fiji Rugby where the members of our union will vote.”

Mazey said all the union members had unanimously agreed to the proposed structure.

“We went through three processes of each resolution,” he said. “The first resolution we had to pass and what took up the most time; Fiji Rugby used to give Suva Rugby Union five votes but other members like Namosi got one vote.”

Mazey said most unions could not vote in the last FRU annual general meeting due to incompliance with FRU regulations.

“Our first resolution was to implement a voting system where the union members and associations were given a vote each,” he said.

“It would be 51 per cent and that everybody had to vote as there was no compliance or anything to make it fair. While we were looking for 51 per cent, we got a 100 per cent so you can’t beat that.”

WORLD RUGBY

Mazey said the proposed constitution has been passed in the SGM.

“The articles of the association which are the constitution are in the company and the deed of trust,” he said.

“World Rugby is flying into Fiji on Saturday and Dr Mitchell had represented them in the SGM.”

Mazey had revealed that World Rugby would conduct their board meeting in July.

“We’re hoping that they will reconsider us back onto the (World Rugby) council as full members,” he added.

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