I'm currently on the sport lived programme in Christchurch New Zealand, and quite frankly I can say that it's just not worth the money. I paid just over £6000 to go on sport lived, and me and the other lads here have all worked out individually how much sport lived have taken in profit from us and from me personally they've taken roughly £3200 in profit and that's being generous. The hostel room we've been crammed in to is a 6 bed room which has one set of chest of drawers for 6 people so we each get 2 drawers each which are each about 5 inches deep so doesn't even fit our clothes in (some of mine are still in my suitcase which I have to pull out from under the bed to get stuff out of. It takes about 5 seconds for the room to get dirty as there's no where to put your dirty clothes and sports kit. A few of us have been in the Academy at the Crusaders rugby team which runs Monday to Friday 9-3 then on Tuesdays and Thursdays we have club training in the evening that runs from 6-8. As the hostel is pretty packed, when we get home, as it's dinner time for everyone and there's 7 hobs between, what we think, is about 200+ guests, we can't cook, and even when we can, we can't eat with the lads we live with as there aren't enough hobs so we usually don't get to eat until about 9-9:30 pm. Especially when you've done a full day of training at the academy, then club training and you come home hungry and tired, having to wait another hour and a half to eat is disappointing to say the least. When we spoke to sport lived about this, the response we got was "we are exploring different options" which, to be honest, just isn't good enough. We also spoke over the phone with the lady who runs sport lived in the UK about the fact that the photos of the accommodation on the sport lived website are completely misleading, she said that it would cost us more for them to update their own website. In fairness, the coordinator out here did look for new accommodation for us and when she found a suitable option, organised for us to go and see it. However, we told that in order to move there, we either needed to pay even more for this, or reduce our sport lived programme, which would involve changing flights as well. We were then initially given just over week to make a decision. For myself and two others, we can't even thank sport lived for setting us up with the local club, because the club we were initially set up with, wasn't welcoming in any shape or form and didn't give us an opportunity to play and put all of us in the reserves. Bearing in mind, one of us was in the London Wasps Academy and the other plays in Nat 2 in the UK, playing in a reserves squad with players that don't know how to play is a testament to the fact that they didn't even give us a chance to play in their prem squad. We didn't feel welcome or wanted at said team so, with no thanks going to sport lived, we changed clubs, going to one which one of our friends in the Academy played for, with help from our coach at the academy. At this club we feel much more comfortable and have been playing there now for 6 weeks. I personally had to pay extra for the crusaders academy as I didn't even know it was an option, so I've paid roughly £9-10,000 in total. The Academy is an incredible experience and I couldn't recommend it enough, however again, sport lived had nothing to do with this. From the lads that have come out here and not been in the academy, they find Christchurch boring as it's very small and there's nothing to do here. However, in an attempt to make their programmes look fun and show that we enjoy it here, they use our photos of trips that we've organised by ourselves, and upload them to their own social media pages as propaganda The lady that looks after us in Christchurch is so nice and I have nothing bad to say about her, however we were all promised full time staff and that's not true either.
Overall, I can say that I would 100% not recommend sport lived to anyone. Unfortunately, most of the boys who aren't here for 6 months like I am are actually looking forward to going home because they don't like it here. I looked at changing my flights and going home early and demanding a refund, however I can't, as it turns out, so will be here until August 12th (it's June 2nd now and I've been here since February 24th.) A lot of us worked incredibly hard to come out here (I worked a 9-5 during the day and worked for deliveroo in the evening, working 7 days a week to pay for this) and partially feel that I've thrown my money away, and all the lads here feel the same. The only thing I loved about being out here was the Academy, which I have now finished, and meeting the lads I live with. I've enjoyed myself in New Zealand and have made some incredible memories, none of which I could give credit to sport lived as I could've booked this all by myself for a much cheaper price tag. If you're looking to go on a sport lived programme, don't. You can book accommodation and even the academy by yourself online and you'll save about £2000 or more.