Rugby union approves Haka
Even though is trademarked by Ngati Toa, the World Cup favorites All Blacks will carry on performing the famous Ka Mate haka. The approval was given in a back door deal that will be announced today.
After consistent talks for months, the North Island iwi and NZRU (New Zealand Rugby Union) will be penning a memorandum of agreement today. The deal will be recognizing the right of All Blacks team to perform Haka with free will.
The money issue is not disclosed as yet and NZRU has hinted that there has been no exchange of money at all. The fact that Ngati Toa would be getting any kind of cut from the revenues that will generated from the Haka, is also undisclosed.
The Ka Mate haka performance means there is an assured jam packed stadium, where ever the All Blacks team would be playing, so there is a huge amount of money involved. The game doesn’t remain just a normal rugby clash if Haka is involved, as the tickets
are sold faster than Kanye West’s concert.
Steve Tew the chief executive of affirmed his backing to the All Blacks for using the traditional war dance. He said, “It gives the NZRU some confidence concerning its enduring use of Ka Mate, while at the same time providing some guarantees to Ngati Toa
that use of the Haka will be reverent.”
He added, “It's gratifying to get to this high point with Ngati Toa and to formalize our relationship.”
An application to trademark was filed in by Ngati Toa for the four key phrases of the Haka previous year. Prior to this an application was already rejected which had the claim of controlling the complete rights of the complete Ka Mate text.
There were more applications filed in with the rugby union against the Ngati Toa’s application. Rugby union has been reviewing all of them, trying to settle down the issue with an agreement. It has filed a few documents of probable resistance to the Intellectual
Property Office since a long time.
Taku Parai and the Ngati Toa kuamatua confirmed that the informal agreement has been converted into a formal deal. The informal agreement had been a made a while ago and wasn’t thought to be sufficient, as the World Cup was coming.
Parai said, “We've always acknowledged the All Blacks performing Ka Mate, so this is just putting an official acceptance in place. It actually has always been about guaranteeing a definite level of safeguard of the Haka from misappropriation; from the misuse
of it.”
Though, Pairi believes that All Blacks don’t misuse the Haka and perform it in a respectable way.
The issue got solved at a good time, when the NZRU is taking care of World Cup preparations and the All Blacks were looking forward to Tri Nations. The NZRU would be relieved with this development as there are so many other aspects to look after. The World
Cup, the Tri Nations and on top of all the aftermath of recent Christchurch earthquake, all of these factors have to be taken care of thoroughly.
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