- Harvey Norman has withdrawn his sponsorship from Rugby Australia
- The million dollar deal will not be extended
- Hamish McLennan claims his dismissal was the reason behind the call
Hamish McLennan has continued his tirade against Rugby Australia, with the ousted chairman claiming the recent loss of a multi-million dollar sponsorship deal was due to his dismissal.
However, Harvey Norman denied their decision not to renew their three-year contract with the Wallabies was due to McLennan’s departure on Sunday.
“Look what those idiots have done,” McLennan told the Sydney Morning Herald. ‘They are arrogant and stupid.’
Rugby Australia has had a terrible year, with McLennan’s decision to hire Eddie Jones backfiring in spectacular fashion after the coach oversaw a dreadful World Cup campaign before heading to his home country amid interest from Japan.
Harvey Norman was a major backer of the Wallabies and was also the naming rights sponsor of the Super Rugby season, with the company revealing it is pursuing other sponsorship opportunities in other sports.
Hamish McLennan has taken another swipe at the ‘idiots’ who ousted him
McLennan was sacked as Rugby Australia chairman on Sunday
He claims his resignation is the driving reason behind Harvey Norman’s decision not to renew their sponsorship of Rugby Australia. The retailer denies that suggestion
“What we do is play any sport for a while; we won’t necessarily stick with it forever,” company chairman Gerry Harvey said.
“So we move into different sports, so we’re very much into sports advertising so that we don’t necessarily stick with that one sport forever.
“You know we think, ‘Oh, we gave that a good try, let’s move on to the next one.’ In all cases we stop at some point.’
Asked if the change in direction was due to McLennan’s decision, Harvey said: ‘No, no, no, no. It’s just the sport itself. So we’ll do that for a while and then we’ll move on to the next one.
“And you know, at some point – like we’re doing basketball right now, we’ve never done that before. At some point we’ll leave that behind and go back and do something else.”
Rugby Australia said on Thursday it was already exploring new sponsorship deals.
“Rugby Australia would like to thank Harvey Norman for his enthusiastic support of Rugby over the past three years,” a spokesperson said.
‘RA is currently on the market and actively involved in discussions about replacement.’