Grannygate

Grannygate is the name given to two different sporting scandals regarding eligibility of players for international matches. The rugby union version of Grannygate occurred in Wales in March 2000. The rugby league version occurred in New Zealand in 2006. There are no other known uses of this term.

Rugby union

In rugby union, Grannygate was a scandal over the eligibility of international players which occurred in March 2000. The rules of the International Rugby Board (IRB) allow players to qualify to play for a country based on their parents or grandparents country of birth. Alternatively a player can qualify based on residency in a country for a defined number of years, or through marriage.

The players involved in Grannygate were:

• Shane Howarth, former New Zealand international who played for Wales before being banned as he had no Welsh qualification.
• Brett Sinkinson, New Zealand born flanker (though he never played for New Zealand) who played for Wales whilst ineligible. He was barred from playing for Wales but later returned to the Wales team after legally qualifying through the residency rules.
• David Hilton, born in Bristol, England he claimed Scottish qualification through his grandmother, he played 41 times for Scotland before it was revealed his grandmother was born in England and he was therefore ineligible to play for Scotland. He never played international rugby again.

Three other Welsh players were initially implicated but exonerated as they had valid Welsh qualifications and had not played for other countries: Australian Jason Jones-Hughes, New Zealander Matt Cardey and English-born Peter Rogers who had played rugby union in South Africa.

The IRB later changed the eligibility rules so that a player could only play for one country. This led to problems with the Pacific Islanders and the All Blacks, who had previously treated one another's players as interchangeable. New Zealander Stephen Bachop, for example, played for Samoa in the 1991 Rugby World Cup before becoming an All Black, but later switched back to Samoa. Similarly his brother Graeme Bachop represented New Zealand and later Japan. The brothers played against each other in the 1991 Rugby World Cup. Since these events, Sitivini Sivivatu and Sione Lauaki both played for the Pacific Islanders side but later went on to play for the New Zealand national rugby team as playing for the Islanders did not require a player to commit his international future to one of the 5 sides which make up the Pacific Islanders.

In late 2010 it was proposed by the New Zealand Rugby Union that former test players be allowed to play for their country of heritage. This would have allowed players like Jerry Collins to turn out for their countries of birth but the move was rejected by the IRB.

Rugby league

2006 Tri-Nations

The term Grannygate was used of Nathan Fien who played rugby league for New Zealand in the 2006 Rugby League Tri-Nations, despite not being qualified to do so. Fien had played State of Origin for the Queensland Maroons in 2001 but was seeking permission to play for the Kiwis in the second game of the 2006 tri nations. Fien claimed eligibility based on the grandparent rule. Fien played in the losing Kiwi team in Melbourne and in the winning Kiwi team against the Lions in New Zealand. He was later banned after The Daily Telegraph in Sydney revealed that Fien was claiming elibility based upon a great-grandmother and not a grandmother. A further consequence was that the Kiwis were forced to forfeit the two competitions points gained for the victory against the Lions which further hampered the Kiwis's efforts to make the final. Fien became eligible to play for the Kiwis in 2007 due to residency rules.

The effect of the incident on international rugby league is that the Australian Rugby League (ARL) and the New Zealand Rugby League (NZRL) were involved in a public slanging match. Selwyn Bennett, the chairman of the NZRL, resigned over the incident and two weeks later Andrew Chalmers has announced that he will leave the job with a year left in his tenure. Graham Lowe, a former Kiwi coach tabled a failed bid to have the whole NZRL replaced. Bennett has since claimed that the incident was good for international rugby league. He has also accused ARL chief executive, Geoff Carr, of knowing about Fien's ineigibility before it was revealed publicly. Bennett said - "Not only Geoff Carr but the secretary at the ARL Colin Love looked into it. The only one who didn't know anything seemed to be me."

See also

• List of sporting scandals

External links

• BBC News link

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/rugby/rugby-union/hilton-ineligible-for-scotland-after-41-caps-636371.html http://www.pina.com.fj/?p=pacnews&m=read&o=18266659344c649da67d6a553608f5&PHPSESSID=bfbb979e3a8a9a2b3af75f6c9b5841d8