Fehi Fineanganofo and the Pasifika exodus that rugby’s bosses don’t understand – Gregor Paul
The predicament of Hurricanes wing Fehi Fineanganofo has exposed what may be a colonial mindset running through professional rugby in this part of the world.
Fineanganofo has been a try-scoring sensation this season and a key part of the Hurricanes’ stunning attack game, but he began the campaign having already committed his future to English Premiership club Newcastle, which he will join later this year.
His decision to quit Super Rugby Pacific and sign with the Newcastle Red Bulls for two years was reportedly driven, exclusively, by money.
In New Zealand, he earns an estimated $150,000 from his dual commitments with the Hurricanes and Bay of Plenty, whereas his two-year deal in England will reportedly net him about $400,000 a year.
The predicament is that, having started the season as a relatively unknown talent, he’s now on All Blacks coach Dave Rennie’s radar – but won’t be around for next year’s World Cup.
If he could find a way to wriggle out of his Newcastle contract, he could potentially make the All Blacks this year and earn an additional $120,000 from the $7500-a-week assembly fees he would be paid.
If he does become an All Black this year and find a way to annul his Newcastle deal, he could negotiate a significant salary increase with New Zealand Rugby and the Hurricanes – one that would see him jump to $195,000 with the latter and a low six-figure retainer with the former.
But whether or not Fineanganofo backtracks and manages to negotiate a contract release, his situation illustrates how receptive young Pasifika players are to offshore offers and how little the game’s executive classes seem to realise this.
Fineanganofo, who is 23, is by no means the first young, Pasifika-heritage player to quit Super Rugby and a probable test career to head north in search of life-changing money.
Charles Piutau left the Blues in 2015 when he was a starting wing for the All Blacks and being told he had a long test career in front of him.
His Blues teammate Steven Luatua followed him out a couple of years later, just as he was looking to be a long-term All Blacks proposition. Leicester Fainga‘anuku, then 23, left for Toulon after the 2023 World Cup, a tournament in which he starred in the epic quarter-final victory over Ireland.
The driver for all three leaving was money, and the ability to change not so much their own lives but those of their wider families.
Piutau was offered $1 million to join Ulster, and Luatua $1.5m to play for Bristol. Both men talked openly about how the money could create generational opportunities for their families.
Piutau was the youngest of 10 siblings and living in his parents’ garage while he was an All Black, while Luatua told the Herald a moving story about the shame he’d felt as a child when there wasn’t enough money for him to attend a school trip.
Fainga‘anuku was just as open about his desire to bank cash in France and spread it through his family. It’s here that the disconnect exists between an emerging cohort of young, Pasifika players, some of whom are from underprivileged backgrounds, and the institutional view of rugby’s decision-making machinery, which is predominantly European and – typically – comparatively affluent.
And this is where the colonial overtones are felt because New Zealand’s professional cohort is about 40% Pasifika, but the number of Pasifika in positions of power within rugby remains tiny.
The number of Pasifika board directors in Super Rugby Pacific can be counted on one hand, and it’s the same for senior executive positions.
There’s still no obvious Pasifika presence in any of the five New Zealand teams’ coaching boxes, though Tana Umaga coaches the Auckland-based Moana Pasifika. Of the 20 accredited player agents in New Zealand, only two have a Pasifika heritage.
New Zealand Rugby’s executive team – the senior leadership – is Pasifika-free, and current board member Keven Mealamu is only the second Pasifika director the national body has had.
The All Blacks, whose playing group in recent seasons has typically been 75% Māori and Pasifika, have made a significant shift in appointing Rennie and Umaga as the first people with Pasifika heritage to coach the team, but this sits as the exception, not the rule.
Under New Zealand Rugby’s governance changes agreed in late 2024, a Pasifika Rugby Council has been formed with constitutional voting power.
But again, as much as the creation of an affiliated body represents progress, it can’t be at the expense of Pasifika people also finding their way into decision-making and influential roles across the ecosystem.
The picture across the professional landscape is one of growing division, where the playing base is increasingly drawn from young men who have invested in their natural athleticism to earn the sort of money that can be used to provide educational opportunities and lifestyle improvements for their extended families.
There has been, in large swaths of the Pasifika community, a process of human commoditisation where young athletes – male and female – sense that their best opportunity to provide is through collision sport, and they will sell their labour to whomever is offering the best terms.
It’s not necessarily a new phenomenon, but the extent to which it happens has accelerated post-Covid.
Players like Fineanganofo, Piutau, Fainga‘anuku and Luatua are driven by a desire to make material change to the lives of those around them, and they see the accumulation of wealth as a noble and valid career goal.
It would perhaps be an exaggeration to say these players saw rugby as a vehicle to escape poverty, but unquestionably, some of their motivation has come from feeling the constant pain of not having what others do.
Yet there remains a faint hint that those who have chosen money ahead of devotion to the black jersey are silently accused of betrayal by the game’s administration, management, executives and governors, who are locked into an idea that the accumulation of test caps is the only true measure of career success.
Arguments get made from the C-Suite about why it makes sense for young players to turn down riches today for the greater riches that will come tomorrow if they build a long All Blacks career. But that’s a high-risk decision given the dangers of injury, form loss and some other hot prospect emerging.
Besides, the likes of Piutau and Luatua have shown there are riches to be had today and even greater riches to be had tomorrow by shifting offshore at a young age, and that being an All Black doesn’t shift a player’s market value quite as much as the propaganda suggests.
Should Fineanganofo end up going to Newcastle, the narrative could twist in time to one where he is recast as impetuous, mercenary and self-centred in forfeiting something as worthwhile and enduring as becoming an All Black for something as crass as money.
It’s a little bit “loyalty to the crown at all costs”, and God help those who don’t sacrifice all for king and country.
But the flag means different things to different people, and professional sport is exactly that: it’s a paid job, and there is no shame or betrayal in choosing to work for the highest bidder.
Gregor Paul is one of New Zealand’s most respected rugby writers and columnists. He has won multiple awards for journalism and written several books about sport.