Greenpeace is congratulating the new All Blacks team named last night, and renewing its call on NZ Rugby to ‘keep oil off the All Blacks’.

Last week Greenpeace called on NZ Rugby to dump its pending sponsorship deal with the notorious UK petrochemical conglomerate INEOS, and launched a petition which has already been signed by over 7,000 people supporting the call.

"We’d like to offer our congratulations to the team who have been selected to play for the All Blacks, and we’d like to invite them to join us in calling on NZ Rugby to drop this odious sponsorship deal," says Greenpeace campaigner Juressa Lee.

"Our Māori and Pasifika players come from communities that are most at risk from the impacts of the climate crisis. It would be a difficult ask to expect them to wear the logo of a company whose business it is to make that crisis worse.

"INEOS is a major player in the oil and gas industry and one of the world’s biggest producers of single-use plastic, a double-headed monster for the people of the Pacific

"INEOS obviously wants to greenwash its dirty image by associating with New Zealand’s good environmental reputation through the brand of our most iconic sports team, the All Blacks. But now is the time in history when big oil and plastic polluters need the red card not a pat on the back."

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