Melbourne Rebels players called to emergency meeting at AAMI Park

Melbourne Rebels players have been called to a meeting with Rugby Australia at AAMI Park on Thursday morning as the club’s future hangs in the balance.

The meeting at 10:00am, confirmed by sources who asked not to be named for professional reasons, comes ahead of the team’s last round-robin game in Fiji this weekend and the finals series for Super Rugby. Players will fly to Fiji for the game after the meeting.

Rugby Australia chief executive Phil Waugh and chair Daniel Herbert are expected to attend the meeting.

The club has been in administration since January this year with debts owed to creditors exceeding $23 million including an $11.5 million debt to the tax office. As a result of the Rebels’ administration, Rugby Australia assumed all payments for the players’ wages and funded the club for the 2023 season. It also stripped the club of its right-to-play licence.

A consortium led by business heavyweight Leigh Clifford, the former chairman of Qantas and chief executive of Rio Tinto, has put forward a plan to fund the club until 2030 that is dependent, in part, on Rugby Australia handing back the licence.

If the licence is not handed back, the consortium plans to sue Rugby Australia for allegedly underfunding the club for several years.

Rugby Australia did not vote for the plan and alleged that the club had misused funds it had given the club to pay the Australian Taxation Office.

Any closure of the club could create further tensions between the sport’s governing body and the Victorian state government.

This week Victorian Sport Minister Steve Dimopoulos wrote to the newly installed president of Rugby Victoria, Elizabeth Radcliffe, reiterating his support of the Melbourne Rebels continuing to play in Victoria.