ON RUGBY:The Anglo-French axis wants to weaken the Irish hand, so as to make it more difficult for them to retain their best players and win Heineken Cups, writes GERRY THORNLEY
TOMORROW THE various stakeholders of the ERC – namely representatives from all six Unions/Federations, as well as the French, English and Welsh club games plus the ERC themselves – meet in Dublin for the third time in what was always likely to be a long drawn-out process to formulate a new Accord and thereby save the Heineken Cup. If they don’t succeed, they will have failed European rugby like no one before them in the history of the game.
Encouragingly, ever since the first meeting of the various stakeholders in the Westbury Hotel in mid-September, no one has broken ranks to air their grievances or do some sabre rattling – not even Premier Rugby’s CEO Mark McCafferty.
While there will invariably have to be some compromise, the Anglo-French demands for a new 20-team competition, comprising the top six from the top three leagues (thereby reducing the Celtic/Italian representation from 10 to six) while keeping theirs the same, are grossly inequitable.
Taken at face value, the French argument for change appears more rugby-orientated than the English who, by comparison, are not as financially well off. This is the first year of a five-year deal between the French pay-TV channel Canal Plus and the French National Rugby League (LNR) for the broadcast rights to the Top 14, with Canal Plus paying a minimum of €30 million a year to €35 million, depending on viewership and subscriber numbers. The Celts and Italians receive a comparative pittance for TV rights to the Rabo Pro12. Furthermore, the French clubs have backing of local councils and mayors (Stade Toulon, uniquely, to the tune of €4 million apparently) as well as more lucrative sponsorship.
Primarily the French want to reduce the number of H Cup weekends so as to bring forward the final from May and thereby not interfere with their own Top 14 knockout jamboree, which was ridiculously expanded to incorporate the teams finishing fifth and sixth in an additional knockout round. Now, they say, the H Cup has to suffer for their expansionism.
At the core of the Anglo-French argument for change is their customary “might is right” argument. The English clubs incurred a loss of €18.7 million the season before last, hence their desperation for their vexed deal with BT Vision. Were the new format to come into place, the English and the French would see their share of the ERC participation monies increase from last season’s estimated share of €10 million each to roughly €13.3 million apiece. This would be at the expense of the celts, whose share would be reduced from the estimated €5.3 million of last year to €3.5 million, while the Italians would receive approximately €3 million instead of €4 million.
Thus, already blessed with bigger populations, economies, playing numbers and television deals, the English and French now want a bigger share of the ERC revenue streams as well. Socialists or Europhiles they ain’t. Self-interested, Europhobe capitalists they assuredly are.
There is also an arrogant presumption that a golden era for Irish rugby is somehow down to hitherto undetected advantages rather than acknowledgement that just maybe this is an exceptional Leinster team to emulate an exceptional Munster one.
The Anglo-French argument suggests that the Rabo PRO12 effectively doesn’t matter, or at any rate not to the same extent as the English and French leagues; and that the celts, all the more so without relegation, can afford to rest players whenever they want to. This argument is as ignorant as it is arrogant.
The notion that Toulouse (who have been in the semi-final play-offs every year since at least the early 90s), or Clermont (in the semi-finals for each of the last six years) or nouveau riche Toulon (semi-finalists twice in the last three years) might be remotely affected by relegation is evidently laughable.
Each of them can afford to rest all, or the vast majority, of their front-liners for a domestic game a week before European action, as Clermont did before facing Leinster in last year’s home semi-final and again before their opening two pool matches this season.
It’s also more than a little arrogant, and wrong, to imply that Leinster don’t care so much about the Rabo PRO12. No less than the English or French, Leinster’s end-of-season run of knockout matches eventually caught up with them in the Rabo PRO12 final.
Also, whatever changes are made to the format of the Heineken Cup and the various qualification rules are not going to affect the IRFU’s player welfare programme. Nor, for that matter, will it make the slightest bit of difference to how Vern Cotter or Guy Noves go about picking their teams either.
It’s also a little hard to take some of the lecturing or advice from the English and the French as to how the Rabo PRO12 would benefit from greater competition for Heineken Cup spots. Or indeed their proposals for a third tier European competition so as to improve standards in the emerging nations.
Deep down, you’d have to wonder if the English and French agents provocateurs for change really believe everything they say. Aside from wanting a stronger ratio of representation for their own clubs, and thus a bigger slice of the financial cake, the Anglo-French axis assuredly wants to weaken the Irish hand, so as to make it more difficult for them to retain their best players and win Heineken Cups.
It probably irritates the bigger English and French clubs no end that they can’t have their pick of Irish players, the way they can Welsh, Scottish and Italian players, not to mention five Cups in seen years or an all-Irish final.
By extension, though, the Anglo-French axis – if successful – will seriously imperil Scottish and Italian rugby, and further undermine the increasingly pallid efforts of the Scots and Italians at provincial and international level.
Either way then, the Anglo-French axis appears hell bent on damaging European rugby for their own gain; it’s just a question to what extent.
