{"id":550931,"date":"2026-07-30T08:04:15","date_gmt":"2026-07-30T08:04:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/550931\/"},"modified":"2026-07-30T08:04:15","modified_gmt":"2026-07-30T08:04:15","slug":"samoa-on-the-brink-of-international-rugby-ban-local-media-reports-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/550931\/","title":{"rendered":"Samoa on the brink of international rugby ban, local media reports"},"content":{"rendered":"

It added the development follows a meeting between Samoa Rugby Union and World Rugby representatives on Thursday.<\/p>\n

RNZ Pacific has contacted World Rugby and Lakapi Samoa for comment.<\/p>\n

Samoa\u2019s Prime Minister La\u2019aulialemalietoa (La\u2019auli) Leuatea Schmidt revealed in March his Government would set up a rival union to govern the sport in the country if the entire Lakapi Samoa board did not resign.<\/p>\n

In February, La\u2019auli expressed dissatisfaction at the status of the game in Samoa, saying at the time the sport had been \u201cpoliticised\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re coming in to clear out all the politicians inside our rugby union,\u201d he said at the time.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt this stage, our rugby is very impoverished … we are in the level that Samoa had never been before, because of what? Because of management.\u201d<\/p>\n

In June, World Rugby formally appointed Lakapi Samoa chairman Afioga Namulauuli Papali\u2019i as Samoa\u2019s representative on the World Rugby Council.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe appointment reflects World Rugby\u2019s recognition of Lakapi Samoa\u2019s constitutional processes and reinforces Samoa\u2019s continued place at the highest level of international rugby governance.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It added the development follows a meeting between Samoa Rugby Union and World Rugby representatives on Thursday. RNZ…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":518848,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[1060,28491,1019,440,1073,111,139,69,1118,90,13572,154770,766,6327,5902,213,223],"class_list":["post-550931","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ban","tag-brink","tag-international","tag-local","tag-media","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-of","tag-on","tag-pacific","tag-reporters","tag-reports","tag-rugby","tag-samoa","tag-sports","tag-the"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550931","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=550931"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550931\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/518848"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=550931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=550931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=550931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}