Sky boss John Fellet denies having any influence over Halberg Award invitations after cricketing great Martin Crowe lashed out at his former employer for not being invited to last night's bash.
Mr Fellet also said that had he known Crowe wanted to attend, he would have offered him a place on the Sky table.
Crowe, who has terminal cancer, directed a tweet at the Sky boss ahead of last night's ceremony claiming he wasn't invited because he doesn't work at the television company anymore.
Black Caps captain Brendan McCullum won Sportsman of the Year last night, becoming the first cricketer to claim the accolade since Crowe in 1991.
"Shocked to hear any chance of an invite to Halbergs went out with my Sky TV redundancy. What a bunch of complete %}^+€! Thanks John, nice," Crowe tweeted. Following his retirement from cricket in 1996, Crowe worked for Sky in various roles, including as top executive sports producer, cricket commentator and director of the Rugby Channel. He left the company in 2012.
This morning, every tweet on Crowe's Twitter account appeared to have been deleted. However, Mr Fellet said he was "somewhat surprised" by the slur, saying he had "always liked" Crowe and respected him and his wife, former Miss Universe Lorraine Downes. Asked if he had any influence over the invite list, he said: "None whatsoever."
He later reiterated: "The Halberg people have never come to me and said, 'here's a list of the people we want to invite, are you happy with it'. Even if I tried to exert influence I think they would tell me to go jump in the lake. We show up with our cameras and broadcast and that's about all the influence we have."
To his knowledge, the pair had not had a falling out, he said, and he believed they were on speaking terms.
"I saw him maybe a year ago. One year out from the Cricket World Cup there was a meeting, and he was there as one of the former players, and he sat down next to me. We had a good conversation," Mr Fellet said.
Martin Crowe's Twitter account.
"If he had have picked up the phone and called me, and said, 'I'd like to go to this year's Halberg's'... even when he worked here I'm not so sure he ever went to that many Halberg Awards. We normally use our tables for advertisers and that sort of stuff, so very few employees sit at the Sky Halberg table."
However, he said he "couldn't picture a better person to bring" than Crowe, and said he would "have to make sure next year ... I personally invite him to my table".
Crowe has yet to respond to requests for comment, however his manager Louise Henderson said he was unlikely to publicly comment on the tweet.
By this afternoon Crowe had deleted his Twitter account.
"If he's expressed his disappointment, then that's what the information is," she said. She didn't know why he wasn't invited, however, she suggested people may be anxious about placing him in the spotlight when he is terminally ill.
"I think it could be an absolute oversight, or it could be simply because people are respecting his privacy and they're not sure of how well he is or how unwell he is," she said.
Geoff Burgess, chief executive of the Halberg Disability Sport Foundation, which organises the Halberg Awards, said the event's main purpose was to fundraise for the foundation "to continue our work of enhancing the lives of physically disabled New Zealanders through sport".
"For this reason our policy is to provide a limited number of complimentary tickets to the awards finalists, presenters and previous Halberg Award (the supreme award) winners only," he said.
