Pacific rugby boss on the ball for historic tests

By WYNNE GRAY

Peddling sex shop merchandise, says Pacific Islanders rugby official Charlie Charters, was like arranging sporting sponsorship packages.

It was fascinating but there was never any certainty about the outcome.

Such vivid statements reflect the life and times of Charters, who resigned as marketing manager of the Fiji Rugby Union to take up work as the chief executive of the Pacific Islanders Rugby Alliance.

Charters, 36, is about to leave the alliance, but there was no let-up in his verbal jousting repertoire as he traded fact, theory and supposition with Wallaby coach Eddie Jones before the Islanders' historic first test in Adelaide tonight.

After Jones argued that the Pacific Islanders should be a short-lived entity, Charters accepted the cerebral challenge.

Major rugby nations such as Australia, he claimed, saw the advantages of keeping the Pacific countries weak as it allowed them to lure the star players cheaply.

"We lack political and economic leverage to be able to play at the sort of levels to attract sponsorship and to give our elite players a career path within our national unions," Charters said.

"You have it in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, through the Super 12 structure, where you can contract players for eight to 10 months of the year. We, unfortunately, exist outside those structures.

"If Eddie has a plan that is going to stabilise rugby in the Pacific and not have us basically as a huge kind of potting shed for Australia and NZ national teams, then that's great.

"He should talk to us about that and sell it into the ARU [Australian Rugby Union], because we certainly are all ears."

Selling ideas and deals have been part of Charters' life since he was at Cambridge University. He was a typical student, he recalled, a bit gawky, keen on his beer and not particularly precise in his thinking.

However, one year he worked at The Private Shop, the only sex shop in Cambridge, in a job which sharpened his skills as a salesman. At £12 an hour and a generous 10 per cent commission, it also helped his bank balance.

Those aptitudes conquered and his geography degree completed, Charters added a diploma in broadcasting from Cardiff.

Coverage of the 1991 World Cup beckoned and he watched all Fiji's pool games in France.

A subsequent stint with United Press International and News of the World in Croatia ended when Charters was beaten up by local soldiers.

He was invalided back to Fiji, a country he came to call home after first settling there as a 3-year-old.

Charters was born in London but lived most of his young life in Fiji with his Scottish father, who was a nomadic tea-planting tobacco farmer, and his mother, who was a film director.

He was sent away to be educated at Rugby School. He confessed he was a very moderate sportsman, saved from making excuses about his lack of prowess when a serious back disease derailed his career.

Rehabilitating in Fiji after his journalism injuries, Charters and two mates lucked into being television sports presenters in 1992. "We were instant celebrities and for about six months we enjoyed unalloyed depravity and excess," he confessed.

"However, in a moment of clarity I had to get out and see what I could do with my life."

Charters moved to Hong Kong, where he worked for International Sports Leisure involved in marketing sport for organisations such as Fifa, the Kart series and the ATP.

The businesses collapsed and once more Charters returned to Fiji, where he was employed by the Rugby Union.

He had married Vanessa, a Brisbane-born Rotuman, and they have two children, one born on the day of the Columbine High School massacre in 1999 and the other on September 11, 2001 - the day of the Twin Towers attack.

A third child is expected in October and Charters hopes that birth does not coincide with a hat-trick of international tragedies.

By then, though, Charters and his family will be in the Midlands, where he has inherited an impressive house and land near the city of York.

"I was left it by my cousin as part of a family inheritance in 1998. I have been delaying taking up the deal because of Fiji rugby, but it was looked on as a bit of poor form if I didn't do something about it."

Charters does not inherit a title, but he will gain another chapter in his distinctive life. A physically imposing man, he is usually clad in some bright, floral shirt.

He intends working on more colour in his next life.

"My whole life has been a strange set of leaps and bounds," he said. "It is consistent with unexpected direction. I am a project person, not good at the long haul. Fiji is not done yet but the worst is over. They are not $1 million in debt like they were in 2001.

"I now intend working as a writer of bestselling saucy sports thrillers."

Charters wrote 60 pages some years ago as a test run. In critiquing the effort, his wife felt it was just an extended sex scene, and Charters has consequently repackaged his plans.

"There has been an explosion of interest in sport in the last 10 to 15 years and there is a volatile mix of business and politics when it comes together," he said.

"There are stories out there which would make your hair stand on end and they can be the basis of a good book."

For the next few weeks, though, Charters wants the Pacific Islanders to make good reading as they start their historic test series against the Wallabies, All Blacks and Springboks.