The IRB voting system is broken
Roar Rookie By Fragglerocker, 19 Aug 2008 Fragglerocker is a Roar Rookie
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The addition of an automatic nine-figure ‘bribe’ to the IRB in order to host the Rugby World Cup is the final straw. The system is broken and is badly in need of a complete rebuild and several doses of castor oil.
But I’ve finally resigned myself to the fact that the IRB will remain broken indefinitely.
When it comes down to it, how could the IRB ever change? The voting system currently in place means that the only way it could change is if the select few countries with the power to change the system all decide to relinquish their power.
That’s an occurrence that rarely if ever happens in real-world politics.
The current voting system within the IRB gives two votes each to England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, France, South Africa, New Zealand, and Australia.
Argentina, Italy, and Canada get one vote each.
Finally, one vote each is given to Europe, Africa, Oceania, and Asia respectively.
If you divide up the votes by player numbers (according to the IRB figures of 2003), the voting numbers don’t add up. The USA (37,430 players), Paraguay (1,740 players), Uruguay (3,750 players), and Chile (13,710) aren’t even represented at the vote.
Scotland (33,600) and Ireland (52,000) get four votes between them, while Fiji (60,000) has to share its vote with Tonga, Samoa, and the rest of Oceania.
It hardly seems fair. And it would seem that money talks.
Given the player numbers, it’s easy to imagine a very different rugby world if the same money and resources were given to rugby in some of these ‘lesser’ countries.
However, the simple fact remains: a country of 100 players, with a culture of playing rugby from childhood and a structured competition taking them through their adult years, coupled with professional contracts for their best players, will always beat a country of 1000 amatuer players, limited to high school or college competitions only.
Nowhere is this imbalance more clearly demonstrated than the voting for Rugby World Cup hosting nation.
Vote dealing between the European rugby powers is now conducted openly and unashamedly. We repeatedly see the farce of ‘RWC France’, with games in Scotland, ‘RWC Wales’, with games in Ireland, ‘RWC England’, with games in whichever country votes for England.
As long as the Rugby World Cup is allowed to be shared between hosting nations, the vote dealing between those nations will continue.
We all know, and it is widely acknowledged even in the north, that the most successful RWCs have been, and always will be, those hosted by a single country. When this occurs, the country is transformed into a two month rugby festival.
Even when the competition is being played in an area where rugby is not a popular sport, the event itself promotes the game of rugby. 15,000 people watching a game between Romania and Namibia in Launceston proves it.
The only way for the game to move away from the “votes for matches” scenario, is to enshrine the principal that no country with more than one vote at the IRB table may share games. This would mean that lesser nations would still be able to share if absolutely necessary.
Once those rules are established, the Rugby World Cup could alternate every four years between established rugby nations with big purses – who would be expected to pay the hosting fee – and nations where the IRB wants to grow the game.
Japan and Argentina would be obvious choices. But after that, there’s no reason why other minnow nations couldn’t do it (not that Argentina are ‘minnows’ on the field).
The criteria for “ultra-modern, world class” stadiums could be relaxed, as most people watching the game would be watching it on television anyway and most of the revenue is TV driven as well.
I remember being in Cardiff for two Wallaby games at the Millenium Stadium (Wales/Barbarians) and going to a Cardiff versus Cambridge game in the old Cardiff Rugby Club ground next door between internationals.
Standing there, with a Cornish pastie in one hand, and a pint of Brains SA in the other, close enough to the game to smell the linament coming out of the dressing room, and having to pick the mud and bits of electrical tape off the bottom of my shoes, I realised that but for the standard of play, my enjoyment level wasn’t dependent on modern stadiums for absolutely every game.
Obviously I’d miss the modern stadiums if I was knee deep in mud every game, but the novelty of visiting “the stone age” every once in a while is amazingly refreshing.
Many rugby followers fit into the adventure tourist crowd and aren’t reliant on 4-star accommodation. As anyone who has or even attempted to go to a Rugby World Cup can tell you, it is a phenomenally expensive venture.
Some of these minnow nations would offer a much cheaper holiday for the travelling rugby tragic.
The main objective of the hosting choice would be to place it in a nation where the sheer scale of the event, and the number of visitors, would make the experience of the tournament unavoidable for the local population.
This is why America would be a poor choice, but Canada would make sense.
A tournament held across America would be drowned out by the sheer size of the traditional US sports market. The average American would be lucky to hear about the match results or even realise the tournament was on. One American state or region, however (New England for example), might be small enough for the RWC to dominate headlines, while still being large enough to provide crowds and money.
Imagine Romania as host nation.
No Romanian could go to a pub without wondering, “who are these 30,000 Irishmen and Englishmen in town and how come they’re not fighting in the street”?
“This is rugby, not football!,” the crowds would tell them. And maybe, just maybe, the next generation of Romanian schoolchildren would have a few more rugby players.
I wouldn’t mind trekking through the Carpathian Mountains in between matches. The possibilities are there.
The IRB would just have to decide what country has a population of potential converts and the Rugby World Cup would do the rest.
But all of these dreams and ramblings will come to nought.
The current voting system simply doesn’t allow for the growth of any junior member into a competitive rugby nation. Apparently the IRB strongly believes in the axiom, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
Unfortunately when they say “broke”, they’re talking about a lack of money, not something in desperate need of repair.
I’m sure many would disagree with my ides for the Rugby World Cup, but that’s not the point of my argument.
My point is that you can suggest whatever you like. A new inter-hemisphere club competition, a new set of ELVs, feather boas for referees, anything.
But first you’d have to overcome the inertia of the IRB who are thoroughly entrenched in their own world of back-scratching and secret handshakes.
A world where a place at the table doesn’t mean a slice of the pie.
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August 19th 2008 @ 2:29pm
True Tah said | August 19th 2008 @ 2:29pm | Report comment
Benjamin,
my diatribe against Celtic rugby is concerned with the amount of power these little unions seem to wield and the manner they wield it in, i.e. their whoring of votes when it comes to World Cups.
We must remember that these unions did their best to torpedo the whole world cup idea.
I think the fact that three unions, who between them have failed to make a world cup final, let alone win one, and haven’t made it past the quarter finals since the 1991 WC, have 30% of the voting power on the IRB committee.
The game in Scotland is in danger of dying, due to several reasons, but if these clowns can’t manage their game within their own borders, what makes you think they can do a better job on the world stage?
Im a bit easier on the Irish and Welsh, because whilst their results are a bit patchy, the game is in no danger of becoming extinct, and these two unions have embraced professionalism as best they can.
Shaun,
comparing the UN Security Council to the IRB is far fetched…no one would dispute that US, China, Russia, France and UK are the strongest military powers in the world…you would be far fetched to say that Scotland is a rugby power…if you must continue to UN analogy, then having Scotland with 2 votes in the IRB is like Australia having a permanent seat on the security council.
August 19th 2008 @ 2:38pm
Peter K said | August 19th 2008 @ 2:38pm | Report comment
True Tah – People should get over the attempted blocking of the RWC by various nations. That happened over 25 years ago, the people who did it are probably dead, at the minimum new people are in power now at the various organisations.
Talk about holding a grudge.
Also I do not hold it against any country making the most of what power / votes it has, that is one reason they are there, pretty naive to expect otherwise.
Scotland could not hold the RWC so why not the next best thing for it’s own union and get some games assigned to it. Especially if the game is dying then having RWC games would be a priority to revive interest in the game.
All that said though I strongly agree that the voting structure should be changed.
August 19th 2008 @ 2:50pm
True Tah said | August 19th 2008 @ 2:50pm | Report comment
Peter K,
Im not holding a grudge, but the fact is these unions are sometimes caught in a time warp…Im surprised that these guys don’t drive a Model T ford to union meetings.
I can’t blame the Scots for casting their votes in their best interests…my issue is with the whole structure being undemocratic, and giving them that power in the first place.
The whole whoring of votes at RWC time was plain to see when France was playing NZ in Cardiff when it all came horribly undone.
Holding a few world cup games isn’t going to help revive the game, it is just papering over the cracks…in any event, RWC games in Scotland are notoriously poorly attended, in 1999, the crowds at murrayfield were awful.
The only true structure would be one which is based on the regions – CAR, NAWIRA, FORU, ARFU, CONSUR and Europe.
August 19th 2008 @ 3:13pm
Fragglerocker said | August 19th 2008 @ 3:13pm | Report comment
True Tah – Although the point of my article was just to point out how unrepresentative the IRB voting system is, I’m not averse to speculating about how the RWC should be held. The only thing stopping Scotland from hosting the RWC is money, and the enormous demands made by the RWC body. But hosting the event in Scotland (without sharing games all over Europe) might be just what the game needs in that country to put it back on track.
The whole idea behind RWC Pty Ltd (the company, not the event) is to raise funds for the development of the game in smaller rugby nations. They seem to miss the fact that the event itself could do more to promote the game in a small rugby nation than an enoromous pile of brand new balls, some boots and a couple of new scrum machines, but using the event in this way is impossible under the current guidelines used to select the host nation.
BLINK BILL – I know how you feel. I wrote a long letter to the IRB and a few national unions last year. Didn’t get a reply from the IRB although I did get a written reply from Scotland, NZ, the ARU, Canada and England.
August 19th 2008 @ 4:13pm
Harry said | August 19th 2008 @ 4:13pm | Report comment
When the IRB refused to apply to the IOC a few years ago, there were a lot of countries most upset because in most places, only Olympic sports get funding.
So the French based FIRA (Federation Internationale de Rugby Amateur) decided to apply to the IOC for inclusion by insisting that it was the conrtolling body. At the time, it had 52 member countries each with votes based on the number of players in their country. France with its huge playing numbers dominated the voting. The IRB had only eight members.
Also FIRA promoted women’s Rugby which the IRB only did half-heartedly.
Because of this, the IOC wasc considering accepting that FIRA was the world controller of Rugby.
When the IRB found out about this, all hell broke loose. Again politics won the day with FIRA being given a vote on the IRB and withdrawing the overtures to the IOC
Now Rugby is still not in the Olympics, the URB is not democratic and still controlled by the British “old school tie and blazer ” brigade. It is a pity that FIRA sold its soul. The only good thing to emerge isc that women’s Rugby has improved.
As was said previously, those in power do not vote themselves out.
Only if the contolling Rugby bodies in Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas combine to force a coup, then the current situation is not likely to change.
August 19th 2008 @ 4:18pm
Mark said | August 19th 2008 @ 4:18pm | Report comment
Shaun – “Perhaps if the IOC presented an ultimatum, become democratic or we won’t let you in(as I think that the IRB’s un-democractic nature is one of the objections), that might work” There’s an assumption that the IOC takes into consideration how democratic a ruling body is. There’s a book by Andrew Jennings – New lords of the Rings, but don’t read it until after the olympics, it might put you off watching !
August 19th 2008 @ 7:18pm
mtngry said | August 19th 2008 @ 7:18pm | Report comment
Time for a revolution. A FIRA needs to be formed, that allows for international growth.
If its not in Japan or other non power house, I will boycott every RWC after NZ.
August 19th 2008 @ 9:34pm
oposasa said | August 19th 2008 @ 9:34pm | Report comment
I noticed Britain have won more gold medals than Australia at the Olympics. That started me thinking… how are the IRB members wales, england, scotland & ireland getting on at the Olympics. Well,it turns out that those teams are part the British Olympicsquad. So are the home unions actually countries? No. They are like states. What we have with their IRB membership then is what philosophers call a “category mistake”. The home unions have been included in the category of countries when they are not actually countries.
OK so common sense says we actually want the home unions in the IRB for plenty of good reasons, but with two votes each. I don’t think so. It’s not egalitarian or democratic as it is.
While I’m on the country theme the IRB has over-involved itself in decisions about which country a player can represent. As it stands you can qualify by residence to represent a country at rugby even if you are not a citizen of that country. Conversely, even if you carry a passport for the country of your birth you may not be able to represent it at international rugby. I’ve always thought this to be a nonsense. In my opinion, if you carry a legal passport issued by the government of a country you should be able to represent that country at rugby (regardless of how many countries you may have previously represented, if you are a citizen of more than one country).
Now that I think about it, maybe the IRB has had to come up with this convoluted eligibility scheme because the home unions can not actually issue passports, because they are not countries, all their athletes travel under British passports.
August 19th 2008 @ 10:55pm
Benjamin said | August 19th 2008 @ 10:55pm | Report comment
Oposasa, the Republic of Ireland is not actually part of Team GB.
Tah, the results from Ireland and Wales are just as patchy as Australian results over recent years aside from Ireland’s triple crowns and Wales’ 2 Grand Slams. It is only until the past 3 years that they have been developing an even footing with the SH nations in terms of central contracts so in the next 5 years we will see the fruits of that labour. That Wales and Ireland still play in the dross Celtic League is an issue but they are certainly attempting to facilitate upward movements.
People can’t keep referring to the 1987 WC as an example of home union conservatism. Everybody knows that UK rugby administration has kept the UK behind the SH but that hasn’t always been the case. Scotland continuously tried to evolve new scenarios. In either the 91, 92 or 93 season they played leagues where the try was worth 3 points and kicking worth 1. They also played leagues with only 13 players. This was to combat the onset of the drift defence that was cluttering up midfieldsin international tests and to get creative play re-emerging. This was rather revolutionary in the mid 90s, and it is no coincidence that the Scottish national side of that period was very good. It is just unfortunate that they have such a small playing base and an indifferent public.
August 20th 2008 @ 9:47am
Blinky Bill - Bellingen said | August 20th 2008 @ 9:47am | Report comment
Fragglerocker – Gidday mate. Look I’d love to take credit for writing a letter with a brilliant suggestion to the IRB, ARU or anyone else for that matter. Truth is it was stillmissit who wrote. I was just applauding him. Read what he wrote about (see his post above), it was a pretty damn good suggestion.
And on your letters – What was the jist of them?