During the fall tour, Samoan players threatened to strike because none of the benefits (7 millions pounds) of the game against England would return to them. A lot of rugby big names supported Samoan players via twitter using #SamoaUnited hashtag, was it useful somehow?

Its cute but nothing changed. I think it did more for the conscience of these rich players in rich teams. It makes them feel like they are doing something for poor teams who are ripped off by the RFU and World Rugby. Its tough to ask, lets say an England player, to tell their management to tour Georgia, Fiji or Tonga. To tell their RFU to not keep all the money from sold out games in Twickenham against Samoa. The reality is that things like #SamoaUnited are aimed at putting loads of pressure on our Samoan Rugby Union for money they don’t have because organisations like the RFU wont even give them 1% of the gate takings from a game Samoa were a part of! If you really want to stand united with Samoa then the best thing is to tell your unions stop being dickheads and give us a fair cut. If you think that is unreasonable then you are the problem.



Dan Leo has spoken loudly a few weeks ago about the blackmail used by some clubs to keep the Samoan players during international time…

Regulation 9 of World Rugby’s regulations are ridiculously unequivocal. "It is in the best interest of the public that the best teams and Players represent their Unions". So World Rugby president Bernard Lapasset says rugby is not the police? That clarifies the impotence of the corrupt World Rugby lot. If Jerry Collins put on a Manu Samoa jersey and played for Manu Samoa like he wanted to, World Rugby and Lapasset would be the first to say "NO! That is not the rule!" But when it is the French clubs blatantly spitting on the Regulations and blackmailing Pacific players then Lapasset says he can’t do anything about it. World rugby has made rules that the rich may break that the poor may not.



Have you ever met executives of World rugby to discuss with them?

I don’t want to waste my time. You think giving Samoa zero dollar from three sold out games was an accidental oversight? You think allowing European clubs to force star Manu Samoa players to retire from international rugby is an accident? You think they just accidentally forgot their own Regulation 9 they wrote? They are deliberately ripping us off.



What is your life today? What are your fights?

I will continue with working with the development of Samoan youth. We have just finished making the first Samoan language DVDs for children. I have also finished producing the first of its kind, “The Pacific History they don’t teach at School DVD”. A collection of wonderful Pacific histories which white supremacist schools conveniently hid. Like the fact that aboard Captain James Cook’s ship the Endeavour, there was a Polynesian Navigator who showed him how to get to New Zealand and navigate the Pacific Ocean. There is so much to do for us all. As professional athletes, we make a tidy living from people who choose to spend their disposable income on us. It should be our duty to be vocal in society about social, economic, political and environmental injustices that impact the people who support us. Watch a football game and you realise that the 22 players on the field can pay off the entire debt owed by the 80,000 fans in the crowd and yet the wealth of the 22 players is by virtue of the 80,000 people in the crowd.»