Europe's rugby clubs all aiming for France's Top 14

Servette Rugby Club de Genève would like to thank Working Class Rugger for his great article. We hope to continue on this positive trend and build on the developing rugby culture in Geneva. For more information please feel free to visit our website at http://www.servettercgeneve.ch. We look forward to seeing you in Geneva some time soon. Best, Servette Rugby Club de Genève.

I believe that a "Ryanair" has entered the lexicon of occasional golf players to describe a shot that "looks promising but lands nowhere near where you thought it would" There's a few more of these. Another was a putt nicknamed a "Dennis Wise" which may not mean anything to Australians so to localise we could call it a "Steve Waugh". Namely, a nasty five footer.

"Dude the only way this will end well is for a cap on foreigners per team and the financial fair play rules the UEFA have in place for football" Wow!!. That was a coffee through the nose moment!! And how are UEFA's "financial fair play rules" working out for the smaller countries? They're not. European soccer is becoming a little like American football, with all the wealth tied into a few very big teams at the top. And it doesn't even have the artificial balancing act of the "collegiate draft" to even things out. The Champions League is now the preserve of the big money clubs from England, Spain and Germany. The Italians, rotten with corruption and financial insolvency have fallen away for the time being, and even great nurseries of football like Ajax Amsterdam are now selling clubs. As for the idea that a glorified pub team like Glasgow Celtic could win the trophy like they did in 1967: unlikely then, utterly fanciful now. An inevitable effect of the power of the big European clubs is steady erosion of the international game. When players get paid anywhere from £2million to £13million pounds a year to play for their clubs, the piffling gratuities paid by national sides lose a lot of their appeal. Sure, there's the glory of playing at a major finals, but it really only works if you are a nobody playing for a small team who suddenly gets his chance on a world stage (James Rodriguez) or are in with a genuine shout of winning the title. Which in the long run means you have to come from Argentina, Brazil, Italy or Germany (with an occasional interlude from France or Spain) Top players are retiring from international duty earlier or not making themselves available at all. And how "representative" of local talent are the major soccer leagues? According to recent surveys only about 40 per cent of all players currently in English premiership soccer squads are "English". If you extend the definition to include "British" players and even extend it further to include Irish players, who have traditionally played in England, it still only comes to 50 per cent of players. The rest come from everywhere. There's even a few from Australia playing in the Premier League. Rugby is in great danger of going the same way. Not now, but in the medium term. With professional sport, that's inevitable. Wait and see how many SH internationals the likes of Toulon snap up after the world cup this year. some may see this as growth. But do you really want a game to grow to the extent that we're all divided into supporters of a few big club sides? Do you really want to be a Toulouse, Clermont Auvergne, Harlequins or Wasps fan from the comfort of your southern hemisphere sofas the same way many of you are already Arsenal, Chelsea and United fans? Heaven forbid.....

Thanks WCR. Fascinating article. Really good Read it a few times to try to understand better, along with everyone's comments. Its great when clubs know of their expected standards: - what investment and performance is expected to rise through the competition tiers - they play transnational cups at different levels - Not dissimilar to players in a team / tournament Something Oz and SH can learn from: - But unlikely. - We're still worshiping and untouchable state competitions, domestically. - Then complain about being bullied / ignored by Wallaby-centric ARU

It does happen quite often, but the walloons in particular have a very good culture going on which means most players in that part of the country are home-grown. Thing is, rugby politics in our country are a bit awkward and tense at times due to the make-up of the national team. The coaches are rather hesitant to introduce foreign players into the national team since they're already coming in for some serious flack Because of the amount of walloons as opposed to flemish players in the team. A french player will only be considered if he's the best in his position in the competition due to the scrutiny the coaches are under. The few players playing abroad meanwhile are usually bought off by their clubs to not represent belgium and remain in the top 14 or pro d2 instead. It's a problem that seems to be getting more and more frequent. Now, not all doom and gloom since we'll be playing in the Hong Kong sevens this year. Exactly what's needed to gain some more exposure.

They have already been in the Pro D2. The next big club is Bordeaux.

The next big club will be Le Parc (Pays de'aix rugby club) in the Aix - en - Provence region in the south of France - just north of Marseille. Boasting around 10 imports they are clear leaders in Fed 1 with ambitions to be promoted to ProD2 & beyond

Thats true bakkies, irish travel everywhere. I remember big numbers at toulon too. My half tongue in cheek point was that some irish may think the Mediterranean coastline or basque region is a great opportunity for a long touristy weekend and a bit of sun too.

To the contrary Irish supporters love going to Clermont due to the atmosphere and passion. Not the easy place to get to. Clermont supporters return the favour when they travel here. LDU. That's true and if you work the Summer season and don't get on the Winter rota it's very difficult to draw the dole in the off season. They reduce the schedule in the Winter. Europe doesn't have high wages and penalty rates like Australia does. The airports also charge them more the longer they are on the ground.

But don't you think it goes both way? You may lose a few players who want to play for teams across the border but am pretty sure french players also cross it to play for you guys? I know it happens a lot in the south west, french guys who cant play at the highest level playing for spanish clubs. And it will be the same at international level when algeria field a team, most of their players will be french.

Perso I avoid big cities and airports like the plaque when I am in europe, no paris nor london most of the time.So the small airports are quite convenient actually if your destination is in the country. Irish supporters have taken full advantage of that and thousands have travelled to france for h cup matches in recent years. They probably just hope biarritz, perpignan and other nice regions get promotted soon rather than clermont or castres (no offense).

I've heard the pilots and cabin crew only get paid whilst they're in the air, so any delays and the staff aren't getting paid, as soon as the plane lands the staff are earning nothing. Encourages them to turn the cattle (sorry passengers) round extra quick.

Bayonne have played home games there in Real Sociedad colours. A Basque merger last year was discussed when Biarritz were heading down. Pro D2 it's also hard to stay in as there is a gap with budgets which means you can only spend a certain percentage on wages. Bourgoin and Narbonne (Jerry Collins has just signed as a joker to cover for Elsom) are struggling to stay up along with Dax.

Airports like Frankfurt Hahn are the most extreme. I know there are buses from Beauvais but most of the others fly in to CDG where you can get the Metro/RER from. In regards to Ryanair they make big profits through sheer volume, badgering councils (see Belfast where they have pulled out due to a bunfight), cutting the odd corner, large charges for admin and staying very little time on the ground which costs money the longer you stay there. They have been trying for a while to buy out Aer Lingus in Ireland but the EU competition regulators have said no.

Exactly lion couldn't have said it better. Don't you love the ryanair/flybe/easyjet airports?! ;) Everytime I come back I see new destinations in towns I barely know. No idea how they make a profit. I have the impression that the bigger the city, the further they are. But ryanair in Biarritz or la Rochelle for example is pretty good.

Just googled it. It is 4km NW of the city centre and the French-Swiss border runs through it. You can enter the airport from either country without having to cross into the other.

Agree bakkies, fed 1 has 4 pools of 10 each so that's not easy to get one of the 2 pro d2 spots. (I just checked Lille are currently 3rd of their pool). imo the only possibility for San Sebastian to integrate the French system would be to merge with either bayonne or Biarritz and create a true Basque team. Personally I would love that but again I don't see that happening (where would they play, spain or france etc). Same with Perpignan, I think they would love to have the financial backing of barca fc and be the club representing all Catalans from both sides of the border. But no barca alone in france.

Not been to Genéve as far as I know the airport is not that far from the city centre. I don't think Ryanair fly there. Easy Jet certainly do and they fly to most major airports these days.

Biarritz used to play their European Cup games (and larger French derbies) in Real Sociedad's stadium in Donostia / San Sebastian and consider that area as part of their support base so I think that would be the hardest club to get in. OB would rightly say we're already the club for that area - only 12 miles between them. As you say it is very easy for an ambitious, cashed-up club to get stuck at Fed 1 level and Pro D2 is a ridiculously competitive league with many of the "big names" of French rugby in it. In fact I'd probably go as far as to say Pro D2 would be the *hardest* professional rugby league to win. Not the best quality, or best players or anything but the hardest grind with everyone trying so hard to get out of it.

Isn't Geneva's airport in France, not Switzerland?* Shows how close it is, I'm sure Servette could even find a pitch on the French side of the border if they had to. FC Barcelona already has a rugby team as part of the huge multi-sport club that has the famous association football team as its biggest part and has since 1924. They're currently looking like being relegated from the Division de Honor (top Spanish league) so can't see them wanting to be in the Top 14 any time soon. They've also had a rugby league side since 2008 as well as the association football, basketball, handball, futsal, field hockey, ice hockey, roller hockey and wheelchair basketball teams. As NOS said I see this as a "Monaco" type situation, not the beginning of a Pan-European league. I think there will increasingly be calls for more "Tiers" to be added to the European Cup competitions to further aid countries like Belgium, Spain, Portugal. Germany and Ukraine as well into the future but that will be an organic development and as seen this season with Rovigo and Bucharest Wolves there is still a big gap. * And I mean the real one, not a Ryanair/EasyJet one which drops you at an ex-military airfield cunningly renamed as a town 150km away!!! But when you pay GBP1 plus taxes for a flight who cares?