Attorney General Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum clarifies that the Swire Shipping Fijian Drua is handled by a private company due to the requirement laid out by the New Zealand Rugby Union.

He was responding to a question posed by Member of Parliament Joseph Nand.

The Drua is handled by Counter Ruck PTE limited, a separate entity from the Fiji Rugby Union.

Sayed-Khaiyum says this as NZRU requires a Super Rugby team not to be governed by the rugby union of a particular country itself which was why Counter Ruck was created.

“The rationale as I said was to set up a separate private company to keep the financial affairs of the rugby union away from the Super Rigby team because of any financial failings that may occur. These competitions are extremely expensive and if it’s going to put an additional burden on the rugby union, we could have the entire structure within that individual country collapse.”

Another requirement is for the franchise to have a minimum of $3m equity, maintenance of $1m cash at hand at all times and a robust business model that can sustain the team.

Sayed-Khaiyum adds given the importance and economic advantage of the Drua to Fiji, the government decided to become an equity holder.

The government has done so by giving $6m to the Drua and will get 51% of the shares from Counter Ruck.

The Fijian Drua will take on Moana Pasifika on Saturday at 4.35pm and you can watch it live on FBC Sports.