The heroic business case that underpinned Moana Pasifika’s failed model – Kate MacNamara

And, of course, the team were established and underwritten with money from Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFAT) coffers filled, in large measure to woo the Pacific, when Peters was at the helm.

The public money the team relied on flowed from the huge top-up that Peters secured through Finance Minister Grant Robertson’s first Budget, delivered in 2018.

The windfall for the ministry was $714 million over four years, an extra $122m in 2018/19 rising to an extra $235m in 2021/22.

Much of the boost, which lifted the ministry’s revenue by more than 30%, was earmarked for a diplomacy effort dubbed the “Pacific reset”.

Peters has suggested that Moana Pasifika’s problems have hinged on poor management and his spokesman emphasised to the Herald that the public funding decisions related to the team were made under his successor Nanaia Mahuta, following the October election in 2020.

But officials signed off the first funding before that. Whatever the failures of the team’s management (and, indeed, of New Zealand Rugby), the business case on which the team’s financial model rested deserves some of the blame.

Payment for that business case, $85,000, flowed through the MFAT “Pacific Enabling Fund”, established by Peters in 2018, and the spending was approved in May 2019, though the work itself was delivered in 2021.

The Herald asked for a copy of this work under the Official Information Act, but the ministry has either lost the document or otherwise doesn’t hold it.

But related documents released by officials, both at MFAT and Sport New Zealand, make several things clear: the business case relied on ambitious pre-Covid figures, including for projecting the team’s revenue streams such as for tickets and other sales revenue related to match attendance, and this unrealistic financial model was used to underpin the issuance of the New Zealand Rugby (NZR) franchise licence and its terms.

Another serious flaw was that the team never enjoyed the security of shareholder capital to underwrite the business. Such funds are typically foundational and required both to get a team started and to provide a cash cushion to carry them through lean times.

Instead, the team had a newly minted charity shareholder, the Moana Pasifika Charitable Trust – the idea was that the essentially Pasifika team would be owned, not by private interests, but by the Pasifika people.

The trust had no capital of its own and was conjured into existence with $500,000 of public money, which also originated with MFAT and was deployed through the Crown entity Sport NZ in 2021.

The ministry also stumped up another $250,000 grant to establish the professional team, Moana Pasifika Ltd, and transferred a further $4m, seemingly of Pacific reset funding, to Sport NZ.

A million dollars of that transferred money was also granted to the team for set-up costs, and the $3m balance was loaned to the team, as an underwrite, to do the job usually performed by the capital of private shareholders.

There are plenty of problems with the taxpayer underwrite, including that it launched, on outdated figures, a spectator sports team at the thin, pandemic-chilled stands of 2022. People spending their own money generally have more nous.

A further problem is that $3m to underwrite a team with running costs of $10m and $13m a year is not enough.

You can argue over the right number, but feasibility work, also commissioned by MFAT, suggested that private shareholder capital equal to at least one year’s team running costs would be required.

The $3m loan was fully drawn down within 18 months of the team’s existence, and the requests to convert it into a grant began even before that. Interest, owed at 5%, was never paid. The principal, now $2.7m (reduced by just two repayment instalments) is very likely a write-off.

Another charity, the Pasifika Medical Association (which had some of the same directors as the original Moana Pasifika Charitable Trust), took over the team in 2024. But it now says it can’t cover the team’s cash shortfall.

It’s clear that many of those who launched Moana Pasifika had lofty aims: to build a professional rugby team with stronger ties to the Pacific Islands, particularly Tonga and Samoa, and to use sport to further these diplomatic ties.

It’s hard to see how those aims, insofar as they were achieved, aren’t eclipsed by the business collapse.

It is possible that private interests buy up Moana’s brand and intellectual property from the liquidators and reach a new licensing agreement with NZR.

Kanaloa Rugby chief executive Tracy Atiga has said she’s interested; she fronts a consortium of former rugby player investors and it has the backing of rugby unions in the islands – she says she was shut out of the licence bidding in 2020/21 by NZR and the New Zealand Rugby Players Association (NZRPA).

However, Peters’ ideas seem to run in a different direction and likely marry optimism for more public funds articulated by the NZRPA.

His spokesman said that principals connected with the franchise have been in touch with the Government about the team’s future.

And that, while no new funding commitments have been made, officials are reviewing matters and will provide advice to Peters at a future date.

That sounds like a lot of the same players who brought us the first 80 minutes of this match; it’s unlikely to bode well for overtime.

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