Power and performance: Fiji rugby’s transition from amateurism to professionalism

Abstract

This article shows how accounting and rugby have been used as tools of control. It compares the role of accounting in amateur and professional sport, initially analysing the Fiji Rugby Union's (FRU) internal documents from the period when Fiji was a British colony and rugby was an amateur sport. During this period, the FRU practised rudimentary accounting since it relied primarily on internally-generated funds and therefore had virtually no public accountability. The FRU board emphasized rugby's core values and downplayed the importance of money. However, in the professional period, donors require more sophisticated financial reporting and auditing to monitor usage of their grants and evaluate the impact of their investments. The FRU has encountered conflict with its donors due to repeated financial losses and alleged mismanagement. This article reveals that those losses originated in the amateur period through diseconomies of scale, inequitable arrangements for international matches and unsustainable funding models. Rather than helping the FRU to address these underlying problems, powerful stakeholders continue using financial resources and governance structures to control and exploit Fiji rugby.

The disparate roles of accounting in an amateur sports organisation

“…First, it seeks to empirically advance prior case-based examinations at the interplay of accounting and sport. While prior work on ASOs has examined the role of accounting in facilitating the transition from amateurism to professionalism (Rika et al, 2016), our study explicitly examines how forms of accounting assist in the maintenance of amateurism in one ASO. Specifically, we reveal that while financial reporting was used by the GAA's management to convey how growing commercialisation supported the GAA's socially driven mission, it was simultaneously used by units within the GAA to shield payments that contravened its amateur status.…”

“…The commercialisation of the global sports industry has sparked a transformation in how sports organisations operate. While many ASOs have sought to benefit from these changing institutional characteristics by transitioning from amateurism to professionalism (Rika et al, 2016), a few have sought to vigorously defend their amateur status [1]. A misconception exists that a commitment to amateurism prohibits ASOs from embracing any aspect of professionalism (Cordery and Davies, 2016;Slack, 1999, 2003).…”

“…Prior studies have mobilised the unique context of sports organisations to provide valuable insights into important accounting issues and practices such as insolvency, crisis management, auditing and accountability (Potter and Lightbody, 2016). Additionally, accounting researchers have begun to explore accounting issues unique to sports organisations such as the evolution of accounting systems in the transition from amateurism to professionalism (Rika et al, 2016) and how clubs account for players in their financial statements (Morrow, 1996;Rowbottom, 2002;Halabi et al, 2016). Given the economic, cultural and social significance of sports organisations, there is significant scope to deepen our understanding of how forms of accounting are implicated in the business of sport.…”

Accounting and Accountability in Fiji: A Review and Synthesis

“…Rika et al. () illustrate how accounting and rugby were used as tools of control. Their study compares the role of accounting in amateur and professional sport; initially analysing the Fiji Rugby Union's internal documents from the period when Fiji was a British colony and rugby was an amateur sport.…”

Development of accounting in Fiji, 1801–2016

“…1 In particular, this article examines the forces that have shaped the development of accounting, including those giving rise to the Fijian accounting profession, extant accounting regulation and accounting education. With the Fijian accounting literature having expanded in recent years (see Alam et al, 2004;Chand and Patel, 2008;Davie, 2000aDavie, , 2000bDavie, , 2005Irvine and Deo, 2006;Rika et al, 2016;Sharma et al, 2010Sharma et al, , 2012, it is timely to present a history of the development of accounting in the country. As accounting research in the context of less developed countries in general (see, for example, Alwattage et al, 2007;Hopper et al, 2009), and the Pacific Islands in particular, is limited (exceptions include Brown, 2009;Dixon and Gaffikin, 2014), this article makes a specific contribution to this literature.…”