Grannygate

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Grannygate is the name given to two different sporting scandals.

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[edit] Rugby Union Grannygate

In rugby union, Grannygate was a scandal over the eligibility of international players in March 2000. IRB rules 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.

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.

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 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 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.

[edit] Rugby League 2006 Tri-Nations Grannygate

The term Grannygate was also 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. [1] 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 Kiwi's efforts to make the final. Fien will be eligible to play for the Kiwis in 2007 due to residency rules.

The effect of the incident on international rugby league is that the ARL and the NZRL have been 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. [2] 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." [3]


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