The new board of the FRU chaired by Filimoni Waqabaca has been working relentlessly in the past 2 weeks and rugby lovers of Fiji should be excited. In interviews with the press he stressed the enormity of the task that needs to be done to bring FRU out of the red (a loss of $600 000 in the last financial year).
The work they are doing is more important than winning the IRB Sevens world cup in June. The future of Fiji rugby is at stake. If done right, turning over a profit with an operating cost of $10 million will set FRU right for the future. The upcoming Classic All Blacks and Fiji game is part of this endeavour with revenue streams from gate takings, sponsorship and broadcasting rights.
However, one of the major concerns it appears from Waqabaca's interview with The Fiji Sun is the number of employees at FRU.
"We will evaluate the appropriateness of the current structure and staff numbers. For example, the IRB has around 60 staff worldwide, FRU according to the structure we were given ..have almost 40 positions."
To reduce the operating costs from $10 million it is possible that there will be restructuring and redundancies at FRU. Waqabaca has made the point that FRU is likely ovestaffed and that some maybe laid off.
As a comparison in England the RFU has about 1.2 million players and employs about 450 giving a ratio of 1:2700 (employees to registered players). In Fiji the ratio is much lower at about 1:1500 indicating that the FRU could potentially save on salaries by restructuring and redundancies.
These are exciting times but sacrifices and tough calls made have to be made.
We wish the new board and FRU all the best.
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