Hot words baffling as peace hopes fade

On Rugby:Not the least irritating aspect of the whole Anglo-French imbroglio that has jeopardised the best competition in the Northern Hemisphere - the millions that will be lost to the game financially, the countless livelihoods that will suffer and the effect on the European game - is the apparently utter lack of concern, much less regret, expressed by the English and French clubs.

The sound of the English RFU chairman Martyn Thomas weighing in by suggesting English First Division clubs be invited into next season's Heineken European Cup merely adds to the divisive air. But yesterday's extraordinary outburst by the IRB chairman, Syd Millar - no matter how sincerely felt, no matter how much one might agree with the sentiments - merely makes the fault lines deeper.

The reactions of both the IRB and RFU appear intemperate, and suggest both organisations are preparing for all-out war and seeking to rally the forces of officialdom - ie, unions and federations around the world - to that end.

One would have thought it was incumbent on all interested parties - be they the militant English clubs (Premier Rugby) or French clubs (Ligue Nationale de Rugby), the RFU, FFR, ERC or, most of all, IRB - to urgently seek a resolution to this matter and ensure the survival of the European Cup as it has existed for the last eight years.

Viewed in that light, angry statements are decidedly unhelpful.

Aside from the many administrative jobs that will ultimately be affected, unwillingly caught in the middle, as ever, are supporters and players. So, in the midst of it all, by far the most sane and intelligent utterances have come from the latter constituency, and in particular Damian Hopley, chief executive of the Professional Rugby Players' Association (PRA).

Hopley makes the valid point that such failure to reach an agreement over a major negotiation in a 16-month period would, in other walks of life, lead to sackings. Alas, his plea for all interested parties to "stop the public slanging matches" appears to have already fallen on deaf hears, which perhaps merely underlines the feeling that such is the personal animosity between so many individual powerbrokers in this saga there should be mass resignations, allowing new personnel to start off with a clean slate.

Into this category would fall Millar; Serge Blanco, president of the French clubs' umbrella group, the Ligue Nationale de Rugby; Mark McCafferty, chief executive of Premier Rugby; Francis Baron, chief executive of the RFU; and Thomas, the RFU chairman. The lot of them should resign, or at any rate excuse themselves from round-table negotiations.

Instead, the animosities appear destined to intensify, in which case the likeliest winners are going to be those in the legal profession.

One can understand to a degree where Millar's outburst came from, just not what it is intended to achieve. It's not as if Blanco and McCafferty are suddenly going to be afflicted with guilt pangs, drop all their demands and return to the bosom of the ERC. Nor will it facilitate any last-ditch attempts to save the tournament.

It's hard not to have sympathy with Blanco's views on many of the flaws in the game's current structures and especially the squeeze being applied on the club game in France and England by the increasing preponderance of international matches, next season being a classic case in point. Rather than show leadership on this vexed issue, the IRB's "offer" to the LNR to have two rounds of next season's Top 14 during the World Cup merely infuriated Blanco and co. It is not a solution.

Nevertheless, when Blanco, McCafferty and the English and French club owners have finished contracting vertigo from their lofty perch on the high moral ground, let's consider where they have come from in all of this. Clearly, they had to be plotting and scheming this from many months back.

The suspicion also lurks that - in tandem with Premier Rugby - the LNR, and Blanco, have acted a little disingenuously in all of this. For example, the terms of the estimated €22-million-per-annum deal the LNR agreed with Canal+ may have demanded a sufficient number of "live" Saturdays in the domestic French championship to make the European Cup a non-runner from a long way out. The net result is the French and English clubs are stabbing the rest of European rugby.

Should the European Cup die for a year or for ever more, the hit on Irish rugby especially and the Celtic nations in general does, in a sense, highlight the comparative strength of the English and French domestic scenes. No doubt Blanco and McCafferty, no less than their many supporters in the British and French media, would merely cite this as proof of how the ERC is run more to the benefit of the smaller nations.

Officialdom may have a curious and flawed way of showing it, but the IRB and its constituent federations and unions do have the greater good of the game at heart. Premier Rugby and the LNR, and most of their owners, are motivated by self-interest.

Blanco professes to have the game's greater good at heart. Charming, larger-than-life figure though he is, Blanco is reputedly a notoriously difficult negotiator. His attendance at shareholders' meetings - he's missed the last two - is unpredictable; he speaks mostly through an interpreter; he is seen to constantly shift the goalposts, wandering off into demands for a global season, a world club tournament, or whatever. Many in the game cannot work out whether he's a genius or mad, or a combination of both.

No doubt he's quite happy to be standing where he is, all-powerful in France and with the IRB in a state of high dudgeon. He has the conch now, and everything seems to revolve around his ample frame.