geez louise for something called a 'settlement', it certainly seems like Rugby Australia bent over and got the stick shoved straight up its rear end.
The only thing i can see that maybe went in their favour was Folau didnt get much money at all. But it certainly seemed that money wasnt the biggest issue for Folau.
This is some crazy Nazi shit going on in Canberra.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-12-...trial/11764676
The fact there was a settlement could say one of a thousand things.
Parting with a small amount of cash to save future hassle, distraction, money invested into court cases is a tiny trade-off in the grand scheme. Sometimes you need to pay to have your problems go away, even if you shouldn't need to.
Folau settling if anything says to me he knew his case wouldn't go the distance. At the end of the day, Folau has officially withdrawn his appeal. Using your own logic in regards to the Olyroos case mere weeks ago, the lady in question withdrew her complaint so you yourself even stated that she needs to be held accountable for her actions and that there was nothing wrong done by the players in question as officially there is/was no complaint at all. Folau withdrawing his appeal, by your logic, says that there was nothing to appeal and RA did nothing wrong and Folau should be held accountable for the absolute shitstorm he has created which has genuinely crippled the entire Rugby brand in Australia. Or do we flip this logic and the fact the Olyroos complaint being withdrawn proves the 4 players were in the wrong? This is one of those cases I struggle to find consistency in your arguments again, MFKFC.
At the end of all of this, RA are going to absolutely tighten up their contracts etc so hate-speech can't be tolerated in future without a doubt. And Folau becomes irrelevant. They are the two certainties here.
OK
general consensus was that he got all his outstanding contract money (between $4-5m). That money he was always gonna get because RA didnt have a case for legally sacking him. The extra $10m in compensation and lost opportunities was always gonna be tough to prove because RA could always trot in sponsors etc to explain they wont support him because hes a bit of a bigot.
He wanted his contract money and apology. he got both. the other stuff was just posturing.
RA got out of it cheaper and saved a bit of face by not being proven to be in the wrong, and got that weird apology from Folau even though im sure hed already publicly done the 'sorry if youre offended'/not sorry apology.
im no fan of his bullshit but its hard to see Folau as anything but the 'winner' in this.
now, as for his future. you just know some team is gonna go after him, maybe not here but OS there are plenty of places that wouldnt care one bit about his social media nonsense.
applying Member logic to the Member is not a great idea. Plus its now a couple hours since his post so im sure hes done a full 180 and headed off in another direction.
as someone pointed out, its gonna be fun seeing the public support for the first sportsperson to declare jihad on social media.
its a wobbly old line thats now been drawn. good luck to everyone trying to navigate it.
Ok, I thought someone said they only paid him about $300k a year for the remainder of his contract length. 4 years or something? So $1.2 million.
But even at $4 million, they got rid of something that was gonna hurt their brand. They'll learn a lesson and tighten up their contracts from now on.
Also, he's only going to get a game over in the US or some European comp and be forgotten forever bar the odd meme.
absolutely, they were gonna pay that money anyway if he played or not, so they didnt really 'lose' anything there.
And if im RA CEO right now im leaning on every single one of those 'woke' sponsors that threatened to walk away from them.
id be making sure the like of QANTAS starting writing them cheques to cover some of these costs. Otherwise id be straight to the media sobbing about corporate australia not wanting to support the team that fought bigotry. and you just know Alan Joyce doesnt want to be 'that guy'.
this is an interesting point.
disrepute with whom? how do we determine the level at which he has 'damaged the brand'? there were clearly other players in the team who supported his beliefs. so where do they stand now? they can have those beliefs but not publicise them, can they vote no (or campaign to vote no) in the Marriage equality debate? can they say it but not use social media etc? its a weird place to try and police thats for sure.
im not arguing your point, as i believe the guy is a dope and a bigot. but i wonder where the line is drawn for how many people need to be offended for something to be offensive.
one thing is for sure, the Marriage equality vote a few years back at least gave people standing up to his behaviour a some data.
because previous, the retort always was 'only 5% of Australians are gay so they dont matter' and 'the majority of Australians believe in a God of some sort so he is supporting the majority opinion'.
the big deal all along was Folau being legally allowed to do this under his playing contract apparently. they sacked him for a rule that didnt exist.
so they really did 'choose' a bigot and employed him.
once he had that contract then the law applied and RA were screwed.
future contracts have been amended, but his wasnt. and that was his point all along.