The Melbourne Rebels
For an in-depth description of their SANZAR bids see:Melbourne Rebels
The Union un-successfully bidded the fourth Australian Super 14 licence, which eventually went to the Western Force. The NSWRU gave up a fourth franchise for the Australian Rugby Championship that allowed the VRU to field the Melbourne Rebels in that competition.
In November 2009, SANZAR announced that Australia had won the 15th Super rugby franchise, and the ARU awarded the licence to the Melbourne Rebels consortium led by media magnate Harold Mitchell. The VRU do not own or run the Melbourne Rebels, they share a CEO (Ross Oakley, former CEO of the Australian Football League) and have representatives on the board.
Read more about this topic: Victorian Rugby Union
Famous quotes containing the word rebels:
“He that rebels against reason is a real rebel, but he that in defence of reason rebels against tyranny has a better title to “Defender of the Faith,” than George the Third.”
—Thomas Paine (1737–1809)