Grannygate

Grannygate is the name given to several different sporting scandals, typically regarding eligibility of players for national teams. A rugby union version of Grannygate occurred in Wales in March 2000, a rugby league version occurred in New Zealand in 2006.

In rugby union, Grannygate was a scandal over the eligibility of international players which occurred in March 2000. The rules of the International Rugby Board (IRB) allow a player to qualify to play for a country based on his parents' or grandparents' country of birth. Alternatively a player can qualify based on residency in a country for a defined number of years.

The players involved in Grannygate were:

Three other Welsh players were initially implicated but exonerated as they had valid Welsh qualifications and had not played for other countries: Australian Jason Jones-Hughes, New Zealander Matt Cardey and English-born Peter Rogers who had played club rugby in South Africa and Wales. A fourth player, Colin Charvis had been first capped for Wales in 1996 while apparently ineligible, but by the time the scandal broke he had completed the required 3-year residency period and no further action was taken.

The IRB later changed the eligibility rules so that a player could only play for one country. This led to problems with the Pacific Islanders and the All Blacks, who had previously treated one another's players as interchangeable. New Zealander Stephen Bachop, for example, played for Samoa in the 1991 Rugby World Cup before becoming an All Black, but later switched back to Samoa. Similarly his brother Graeme Bachop represented New Zealand and later Japan. The brothers played against each other in the 1999 Rugby World Cup. Since these events, Sitiveni Sivivatu and Sione Lauaki both played for the Pacific Islanders side but later went on to play for the New Zealand national rugby team as playing for the Islanders did not require a player to commit his international future to one of the 5 sides which make up the Pacific Islanders.

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