Ex Maori All Black jailed for stealing pokie grant money given to help Junior Rugby!

A former Maori All Black Lindsay Raki was sentenced today to two years and nine months in jail for stealing pokies grant money totalling more than $300,000. 

The intended recipients of the grants that ended up in his account were the Manurewa High School Rugby Academy and Counties Manukau Youth Development Inc. 

Both groups were set-up to promote Youth Rugby.  

Raki, an accountant, was the Academy's financial controller. 

Raki was described by the judge as: “A dishonest witness who has in part woven an account that might accord with some legitimate documentation he can produce, and then created documents after the event to fill in the gaps and back up his story.”

No mention has been made as to restitution, $300,000 is a hell of a lot of money to embezzle. 

With good behaviour he’ll be out in little over a year. 

I would consider a year in low security jail for $300,000 – wouldn’t you?  

Danish Football Association 9 N.Z Rugby Union 0

This bloke is Nikolas Bendtner a high profile footballer from Denmark. 

He’s played for Arsenal and Juventus so he’s no slug.   

Until yesterday he was playing for the Danish team, capped 55 times.  

But he is now banned from being selected for at least six months after being charged with drink-driving in Copenhagen.  

He was only just over the limit by the way.  

If he is proven guilty of D.I.C he’ll also face being fined by the Danish Football Association (DBU) on top of any court fines, bans.   

“DBU respects every player's right to a private life, but we still have some rules and expectations about how players on the national team behave in public.” 

Let me re-state what the Danish Football Association said because it’s kind of foreign to New Zealanders, totally incongruous concept to absorb for rugby folk.   

“We respect every player's right to a private life, but we still have some rules and expectations about how players on the national team behave in public.”