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Melbourne Rebels enter voluntary administration, will play out 2024 season

The Rebels huddle during the round 11 Super Rugby Pacific match between Melbourne Rebels and ACT Brumbies at AAMI Park, on May 07, 2023, in Melbourne, Australia. (Photo by Daniel Pockett/Getty Images)

The Melbourne Rebels have entered voluntary administration, but will get the opportunity to play in the 2024 Super Rugby Pacific season thanks to Rugby Australia’s backing.

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Rumours and reports around the club’s financial status had been evolving over the offseason and ultimately, the club made the decision on Monday night to enter voluntary administration.

With the Super Rugby Pacific and Super W seasons just around the corner, Rugby Australia has stepped in to ensure the club will see out both campaigns.

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“RA is committed to ensuring the Melbourne Rebels play in the 2024 Super Rugby competitions, and we will support their preparation for the new season,” Rugby Australia CEO Phil Waugh said.

“As custodians of the game, we are determined to ensure that RA is making responsible decisions for a sustainable and successful future – we will work with the Rebels and the relevant stakeholders to that end.”

RA confirmed that the men’s competition’s Super Round, slated for 1-3 March at AAMI Park, will go ahead as planned.

Waugh also insisted RA would work alongside the Victorian Government to ensure the 2024 campaigns go ahead.

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“The Victorian Government has been a long-standing and significant supporter of professional and community rugby,” he said.

“Through our strong partnership – forged through decades of staging major events in Melbourne – our focus is to work with the Victorian Government and its key agencies, including Melbourne and Olympic Parks Trust, to ensure the Rebels’ participation in the 2024 Super Rugby season and the continuation of professional Rugby in the state.”

Melbourne Rebels CEO Baden Stephenson said the club are determined to make the most of the 2024 seasons.

“Our focus as an organisation is to ensure we can deliver the 2024 season, perform well in the 2024 Super Rugby Pacific and Super Rugby Women’s competitions, and to position our club in the best possible way for the future,” he said.

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“Thank you to the Rebels’ players and staff, our partners, and especially the members and fans for their support and patience during this time.”

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J
JW 4 hours ago
Does South Africa have a future in European competition?

I rated Lowe well enough to be an AB. Remember we were picking the likes of George Bridge above such players so theres no disputing a lot of bad decisions have been made by those last two coaches. Does a team like the ABs need a finicky winger who you have to adapt and change a lot of your style with to get benefit from? No, not really. But he still would have been a basic improvement on players like even Savea at the tail of his career, Bridge, and could even have converted into the answer of replacing Beauden at the back. Instead we persisted with NMS, Naholo, Havili, Reece, all players we would have cared even less about losing and all because Rieko had Lowe's number 11 jersey nailed down.


He was of course only 23 when he decided to leave, it was back in the beggining of the period they had started retaining players (from 2018 onwards I think, they came out saying theyre going to be more aggressive at some point). So he might, all of them, only just missed out.


The main point that Ed made is that situations like Lowe's, Aki's, JGP's, aren't going to happen in future. That's a bit of a "NZ" only problem, because those players need to reach such a high standard to be chosen by the All Blacks, were as a country like Ireland wants them a lot earlier like that. This is basically the 'ready in 3 years' concept Ireland relied on, versus the '5 years and they've left' concept' were that player is now ready to be chosen by the All Blacks (given a contract to play Super, ala SBW, and hopefully Manu).


The 'mercenary' thing that will take longer to expire, and which I was referring to, is the grandparents rule. The new kids coming through now aren't going to have as many gp born overseas, so the amount of players that can leave with a prospect of International rugby offer are going to drop dramatically at some point. All these kiwi fellas playing for a PI, is going to stop sadly.


The new era problem that will replace those old concerns is now French and Japanese clubs (doing the same as NRL teams have done for decades by) picking kids out of school. The problem here is not so much a national identity one, than it is a farm system where 9 in 10 players are left with nothing. A stunted education and no support in a foreign country (well they'll get kicked out of those countries were they don't in Australia).


It's the same sort of situation were NZ would be the big guy, but there weren't many downsides with it. The only one I can think was brought up but a poster on this site, I can't recall who it was, but he seemed to know a lot of kids coming from the Islands weren't really given the capability to fly back home during school xms holidays etc. That is probably something that should be fixed by the union. Otherwise getting someone like Fakatava over here for his last year of school definitely results in NZ being able to pick the cherries off the top but it also allows that player to develop and be able to represent Tonga and under age and possibly even later in his career. Where as a kid being taken from NZ is arguably going to be worse off in every respect other than perhaps money. Not going to develop as a person, not going to develop as a player as much, so I have a lotof sympathy for NZs case that I don't include them in that group but I certainly see where you're coming from and it encourages other countries to think they can do the same while not realising they're making a much worse experience/situation.

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