Incoming Wallabies coach Dave Rennie has agreed to a 30 percent pay cut to help the sport deal with the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic, in line with other executives at Rugby Australia, officials said yesterday.
The New Zealander does not officially start until the middle of next month and had been immune from the cutbacks imposed elsewhere in the organization because his contract had not begun.
However, the former Glasgow Warriors coach touched base with Rugby Australia interim chief executive Rob Clarke this week to volunteer a pay cut until at least the end of September.
Photo: Reuters
Rugby Australia director of rugby Scott Johnson said that Rennie told him at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic that he would drop back to whatever level other employees were on.
“Dave Rennie brought this up to me a couple of months ago,” Johnson told the Australian newspaper of the 56-year-old, whose contract is reportedly worth A$1 million (US$650,000) annually. “And anyone who knows Dave Rennie like I do ... there is no way he would have come into Australia and coached without accepting what everyone else was accepting. There is no way he would have done it.”
With Rugby Australia facing big financial losses from the sport’s coronavirus-enforced shutdown, about a dozen executives in late March agreed to 30 percent pay cuts until Sept. 30.
Players’ wages were also slashed by about 60 percent, while Rugby Australia this week sacked a third of its staff.
It posted a nearly A$10 million deficit last year, exacerbated by a hefty payment to former Wallaby Israel Folau after his sacking. It has since been bleeding money with Super Rugby postponed and Tests next month against Ireland and Fiji canceled.
Despite the turmoil, Rennie this week said that “there are lots of good things happening in Australian rugby.”
“I’m a lot clearer on the players and where they’re at and what we need to do,” he said.
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