Let this be a lesson to all those who argue against the simple truism that the market, most of the time, tends to be right.
Moana Pasifika are in liquidation, the vote was held and the story ends here.
The trouble is the taxpayer footed a lot of the bill and the money is gone, flushed down an ideological toilet.
If the idea was such a sensational one, someone actually using their own money would have thought of it and further put it into practice.
But the idea wasn't a sensational one. It was an artificial one propped up with other people's money.
The most immediate alarm bells should be ringing in the NRL with their PNG venture.
Having been handed millions by the Australian Government, players will live in a compound because it's too unsafe not to, and their pay will be artificially jacked up by tax treatment. Otherwise, if it wasn't, no one would want to play in PNG.
Gosh I wonder why.
The fact this harebrained idea has got as far as it has actually defies what is going on elsewhere in the sport, which is good. And what else it defies is belief.
But back to Moana Pasifika, it was taxpayers’ money through a series of very, very loosely connected organisations to sport i.e. a medical group who, if you join some dots, you can argue if you run around you might be a bit fitter and then not end up dying young. That sort of logic. Anyway, a medical group who ended up in charge of a professional sports team who didn't really attract a crowd and didn't really turn out to be that good.
Which is one of the great ironies – young Pacific kids were supposed to see their heroes and be inspired to be fit and play sport. You know what inspires kids? Winners. You’ve got to win.
And those kids could see their heroes anyway in the Crusaders, the Chiefs, the Hurricanes, the Highlanders, and the Blues.
No one ever watched Lomu or Jones and wondered aloud to themselves, "wouldn't it be cool if they had their own, local team?"
So it ends in liquidation, a bad idea, with easy money, not properly executed and ending in the poor house.
In a world where successful sport is all around us, why would you try and gerrymander it in such an amateurish fashion?
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