John O'Neil New Chairman for Echo.

With news tonight that John Oniel has been appointed chairman at Echo surely he must soon stand down as Aru CEO. The bloke is on a million bucks a year and he should be full-time. The Aru board should not allow an employee to sit on a board such as Echo and claim a full-time salary. Rugby deserves better.

Yes, major ARU governance issue, and this is the absolute height of our season (and it's started so well). How it is possible for the ARU board to permit this - as they must have even for a few months - and then JO'N to consider this highly visible non-rugby commitment as sound judgement in the eyes of rugby fans, sponsors and general public, is quite astounding.

Highlights - if such is needed - the bigger issues within the ARU that many of us have raised here for years now.

It tells me a lot about the current board.
Totally ineffective,he is clearly accountable to no one.

au contraire mon frère, J'ON has been busy implementing the instruments to create Wallaby success this year up to this point. Now that the season is upon us, there is nothing left to do so he would just sit back and let the success wash over him. This leaves him a lot of time on his hands. I am surprised it is just one board. He would be in demand.

Its obvious JON is bored with rugby, please move on.
We need someone hungry and inspiring

Totality Tony! This may well have been the real reason he was brought back. We just didn't grasp what he meant when he was asked by the Irish Times what he would be involved with and he responded: "The totality of it."

After he so obviously assisted Robbie prior to the Newcastle Test by passing on all he had learned about wet weather rugby while in the Northern Hemisphere he would be just the man to continue JO'N's twin legacies of developing rugby from the grass roots up and seeing off the challenges of the other codes.
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O'Neill was Chairman of Events NSW for a while, so perhaps this sort of outside involvement is allowed under his contract. The Events NSW involvement made sense, any involvement with a casino makes no sense at all.

The latest Annual Report of Echo Entertainment indicates that JO'N serves on multiple EE board committees and thus his total non-executive EE fee per annum (as per the last Report) would be in the region of $200,000. This would likely increase materially for a Chairman's role. There are at least 2 other NEDs on the EE board, as per the last Report. Nonetheless, JO'N as EE NED has stepped up to the Acting Chairman's role.

A Chairman's role of a public company under some criticism and external shareholder pressure typically entails more than a minor amount of time. Such a role is typically undertaken only by professional executives relatively free of other commitments, or professional non-executive directors that only serve in other non-executive roles.

In this context, I vividly recall JON recently admonishing on an anonymous basis 'parties' he indicated were lobbying to get other jobs within Australian rugby than the ones they had now. He indicated that such parties should focus solely on what they were doing now and not waste time aiming for some future potential role. Media sources speculated this was directed at Link. Since then, it's interesting that J'ON has admitting actively considering a role as CEO of Manchester City football club, and has now taken on a significant additional set of tasks with Echo Entertainment.

Some background to the appointment of J'ON as Acting Chairman of Echo Entertainment:

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/business/unhappy-ending-for-echos-story-20120608-200xz.html

If only JON would throw Deans under the bus, as willingly as he threw John Story.

Mark Arbib, who is going to run the review into the ARU's governance structure, was instrumental in getting rid of the previous chairman as part of James Packer's private business, Consolidated Press, and presumably influential in having JO'N installed.

Packer is reportedly happy with JO'N's appointment as A/Chairman so it's all very chummy.

Arbib has stated that Packer has big plans for tourism in Australia of which Echo is a part of.

To me this raises questions as to whether Arbib should now be involved in the ARU's review of governance given his connection with JO'N as part of Echo Entertainment.

Clearly Arbib is conflicted and should step aside, but he won't.
Who appointed him?

A bloke by the name of David Gallop is out there in the market and I hear he isn't to bad at running a sporting code.

Just put Deans between JON and a bonus payment...you won't see Deans for the dust.

Really?

i would have no problem with Gallop jumping ship to us

If there is nothing in his contract to prevent him From doing both jobs (as seen by his involvement in events NSW) then good on him. Hard enough to get one job sometimes,networking or not, he is doing well for himself and if he isn't breaking laws then full credit to him.

WJ, I believe that JON has a full plate with his role at Rugby HQ.
Things are not travelling that well in any sphere of the business.
For the remuneration he puts his hand out for each year, he is entitled to be pouring all his energy into this role.
I don't believe that he has been nearly as successful this time around.
Maybe now is a good time for a parting of the ways?
He has his board position in the UK with Rugby for the prestige, now a chairmanship with a large publicly listed company for the cash. He has his retirement sorted, what is he waiting for?

DING!

O'Neill now announced as CEO of Echo Entertainment .. I think as a rugby community we should expect his immediate resignation.