Why the French and English need us and the Heineken Cup

[the original kimble]

There is a aspiration within the IRB to see the game grow internationally. Now I realise that this is often enough undermined by self interest, but I believe there is an appreciation at the highest level of the game that this is what is best in the long term. Competitive rugby at the highest level helps to fill the piggy banks. And the challenge here must be, firstly, how do the Celtic Nations keep pace with the Big Five, (OK, Four), and secondly, how to bring on the second tier, so admirably championed by Italy. The biggest hurdle to this is how to manage the advent of professionalism. Or put simply, how to prevent the drift to the centre, with the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. This requires vision and leadership, not narrow self interest, and it is here that the RFU and the FRU must be made to accept how important a level playing field is for the Welsh, Scots, Irish and Italy.

And to put that into context it is helpful to consider what happened to soccer some 120 years ago. In the amateur era the game was reasonably evenly contested throughout Great Britain with town sides, university teams and former pupils teams competing well enough with each other. Indeed Queens Park from Glasgow reached the FA Cup final twice, losing both times to Blackburn Rovers. However, as professionalism spread throughout the game, the focus shifted to the big population centres, where the crowds were bigger and, remember, the only income was gate money. Added to this was the difficulty of travel, so there was no practical way for teams from Belfast and Dublin to compete in a British Isles wide competition. For similar reasons the Scots looked inward and went their own way. It is ironic that some of the earliest and most successful professionals were Scots playing for the Northern English teams. The result was the supremacy of the English League over all others. And so began the sorry sight of promising young hopefuls from these shores heading off to English clubs. I realise this is a general overview and I do not wish to start a debate as to how well the Old Firm would fare in today’s Premier League, although I believe if there had been air travel and TV back then the history of British and Irish Football would be dramatically different.

But, roll forward 120 years and rugby is at the same crossroads. Today we have the reality that two of the best sides in Europe play in Dublin and Limerick. And our lads don’t fare too badly either. If European Rugby is to continue to grow it must not allow a handful of English and French clubs to dominate the debate. I believe the Celtic Nations ability to continue to compete at the highest levels of rugby is primarily due to the fact that we have home based sides playing matches throughout Europe and the facility to bring the entire national squads together as we see fit. To allow the game to narrowly focus on two National Leagues will result in a repeat of the 1880’s, with the Welsh, Scots and Irish plying their trade in foreign fields. This in turn will impact directly on national form, resulting in a widening gap between national sides. Hardly the way to go about strengthening international competition around the globe.

I am reasonably confident that there are enough sensible heads within the game to acknowledge this and therefore expect the European wide dimension of our game to survive. It will not however be a smooth ride.

tok

[darkside lightside]

There is a aspiration within the IRB to see the game grow internationally. Now I realise that this is often enough undermined by self interest, but I believe there is an appreciation at the highest level of the game that this is what is best in the long term. tok

for often, read always.. the problem is that even in the larger and relatively wealthier countries (i.e. Engalnd and France) rugby is still sufficiently financially precarious that self-interest trumps any altruistic motive in pretty much all cases.

The problem as well is that the bar will keep shifting - at the outset of professionalism, I'd say a lot of club owners would have been happy to break even, when that's reached then they'll look for growth and then profits, at no stage will they say "actually we're doing ok now, now let's think about what's best for European rugby.."

If European Rugby is to continue to grow it must not allow a handful of English and French clubs to dominate the debate tok

They will, though, because they they have scale and financial clout on their side. They also are the only leagues who can threaten to leave as a back-stop. If Scotland or Wales or Italy did, the reaction would be in degrees of indifference; Ireland, there'd be a bit of a stir, because Irish sides have won it a couple of times, but it'd survive; if England or France leave it, it's much-diminished, and probably unsustainable.

At base, I have some sympathy for the French clubs (and English too) - their problem is that (i) they don't think the ERC is run efficiently enough (ii) the English and French clubs don't get their fair share of input or reward and (iii) despite this, the competition further clutters a season that's already too long.

Point (iii) is largely their own fault - the Top14 should be a Top 12, or Top 10, unfortunately I haven't seen this subject broached anywhere, so don't know where that debate is at. Point (i) I could well believe. And point (ii) is hard to argue, I don't have the numbers to hand, but seem to remember that there is a distinct skew towards the Celtic nations.

The bottom line though is that they don't "need" us, the question is do they want us - and until the ERC is structured in a manner satisfactory to them, the answer seems to be no..

[bogboy]

It was B Shakley said "Success buys Success " or words to that effect

The great problem in English and French rugby is the failure to see that the only the Clubs that succeed are the rich Clubs and there success improverishes the remaining clubs and is obtained at the expense of the poorer Clubs

A successful Club game is also at the expense of the International side since successful Clubs will to maintain their success import players from other Countries and therefore players maybe denied the platform to develop.

There is also the problem that a league dominated by one or two Clubs ceases to be competive and this can reduce the crowds who are only interested in going to matches when their own Club is playing one of the big two eg a F.A. Cup match between a non League side and Man U could be a capacity crowd for the Non League Club

The conclusion to be drawn is that to maximise competiveness and gates a league should not be achived by the size of the largest overdraft and highest pay packets

Every player on a rugby pitch incurs the risk of injury and therefore the players pay packets should be controlled centrally .A star player should then be allowed to benefit from any personal advertising deals and it is the income from such deals would reflect the quality of the player or players

It is and always will be the problem that once a game goes professional that sport maybe the loser to personal interests which is better known as greed

Thus the sooner the English and French smash the the Club cartel of narrow interests the better for the game as a whole not just in England and France

[mikerob]

Bogboy - your arguments aren't supported by facts.

The GP has a wage cap so there is no significant difference between the player wage bills across the different clubs.

GP attendances have been increasing year-on-year so there is no evidence that the paying public is being turned away.

[bogboy]

At the moment mike there may be little difference but there are clubs that can afford it and there are clubs that can't and with relegation permed into the equation it is a dice with the devil

[the original kimble]

Unions must win last big battle if game is to flourish

KEVIN FERRIE, Chief Rugby Writer The Glasgow Herald January 22 2007

Whether a French boycott of the Heineken Cup goes ahead or not next season we now, at last, appear to be moving towards the end game in the club versus country war that has blighted rugby in Europe since the sport went open.

All the northern hemisphere's leading nations have been troubled by this issue in different ways and it is what lies at the heart of this latest dispute.
Unless the English clubs join with their French counterparts - which is far from unlikely - the tournament will go ahead. Even if the English clubs do repeat their mistake of eight years ago by pulling out, it should still take place.

No-one in Ulster could care less that English clubs were absent from the tournament in 1999. Their win over Colomiers in that year's final at Dublin's Lansdowne Road remains one of the greatest occasions in European rugby history.

In terms of the French claims that there will be too many fixtures in a World Cup season there is a relatively easy solution available to the tournament organisers in reverting to pools of three teams for one season only, with only the winners going through to the quarter-finals.

Doubtless, the European Cup organisers dismissed any such notion because the idea that this high-class cross-border competition is being threatened because French clubs deem their domestic championship more important is disgraceful.

Furthermore, they know that is not what this is really all about. The real issue is about whether rugby unions or their member clubs hold the power.
For those of us who believe representing your country to be the ultimate ambition, the answer to that is clear.

Personally, I find the mess football has got itself into, where club sport has become more important than the international game, utterly distasteful.

Walter Smith's decision to leave the Scotland job for a much bigger job when join- ing Rangers was the latest example of this and there is nothing wrong with the decision made by him as an individual.

What is quite appalling is the culture that has been created. It cannot be right that involvement with a club which is representative of only part of our country's community and which has, rightly or wrongly, been associated with some rather unpleasant aspects of our society, is more important than guiding the fortunes of the team who represent the entire nation, but that is how it is.

The day that sort of tribal thinking dominates rugby is the day many of us turn away from the sport, but Celtic solidarity can prevent that from ever becoming the case.

With Ireland taking the lead because of the natural strength and identity their provinces boasted, the Scots, though unable to perform as effectively for reasons of resource, quickly followed through the old district set-up, while the Welsh took a little longer to merge their top clubs into regional sides.

That process of evolution has allowed them to mirror what has been achieved in the southern hemisphere, where the Tri-Nations Unions have kept control of the sport. The Magners League is now the strongest in Europe and that is no coincidence.

What Serge Blanco's Ligue National organisation seeks to do, in association with the leading English clubs, is wrest control of Europe's leading club/provincial competition from the unions. Fortunately, the Celtic countries have the voting power to stop that happening.
If the English and French clubs do not see sense, what is now needed is for England's RFU in particular to be brave and take charge of their situation.

The English RFU need to centrally contract England's international players as they come available in order to take control of their schedules and ensure that they do not play too much rugby.

Any resistance from leading clubs would quickly be quelled by allocating players either to those of their own clubs who are prepared to co-operate with them or by sending them short-term to Celtic sides, while withdrawing all subsidies from their clubs.

There is a lesson to be taken from history. Exactly a century before rugby went open in 1995 the sport was similarly torn by a dispute over broken time payments to players. After 12 years of arguing, the Rugby League was finally formed in 1907.


tok