According to the French, the only way to “help safeguard international rugby’s future” is to grant them the hosting rights for the 2023 World Cup.
On the surface this is one of the most arrogant statements I’ve read in a long time, but it does highlight one of the major issues the global game is facing. The fact the French union has offered an extra £30 million ($A50 million) over and above the expected tournament fee is particularly concerning.
I guess we should be thankful for small mercies – at least the offer was made publicly instead of behind closed doors. I wonder how Ireland and South Africa felt about France’s offer and if either of them has upped their bids in an attempt to stay in the running.
Italy withdrew their bid to host the 2023 Rugby World Cup after Rome’s mayor, Virginia Raggi, put an end to the city’s bid to host the 2024 Olympics. Federazione Italiana Rugby president Alfredo Gavazzi said, “We are aware that we have missed a fantastic opportunity to further embed our values and our sport in the Italian social fabric, but we have to recognise that as of now there are no grounds to continue this journey”.
But will there ever be another opportunity for Italy to host the Rugby World Cup? Italy isn’t a monied union, and rugby isn’t a major sport in Italy – in fact, rugby is ranked the 10th most popular sport in Italy, lower than the likes of water polo (5th) and wrestling (6th). So would their government be willing to help them to the extent needed to make another bid?
Now France has stated that a successful bid to host the 2023 World Cup “would help in attempts to stop its Top 14 clubs luring southern hemisphere players to Europe”.
So let me get this right: they’ll only curtail the Top 14 clubs if they get the bid, even though Claude Atcher, the manager of France candidacy, has publicly acknowledged the damage this competition is doing through the clubs luring southern hemisphere players “on lucrative contracts“.
Atcher suggests that if the rules aren’t changed, then “in five years or ten years all South African, Australian and New Zealand players will play in France, in England”.
I take issue with this statement. New Zealand players are lured north after retirement from international rugby or if they have too many other players ahead of them in their favoured position or if they’re not in consideration for a place. The New Zealanders currently playing in the northern hemisphere have not had an impact on the All Blacks.
It might not be that way for every country, but we’re blessed with depth, and we owe that to the effort and dedication that has gone into developing the sport at the grassroots level. So I disagree with Atcher when he suggests all New Zealand players will play in France and in England. That’s quite a huge generalisation to make!
(Image: AFP Photo / Lionel Bonaventure)
Is he suggesting New Zealand Rugby will stop working at ways of how to keep our best players here? Or is he suggesting that the lure of the black jersey will one day end and not be a motivating factor for players? This statement shows how little he knows about global rugby.
I’m quite happy New Zealand doesn’t allow offshore players to play for the All Blacks; our depth ensures that such a rule doesn’t affect the national team. New Zealand has “600 professional players offshore and 38 played for other countries in the 2015 World Cup”, but New Zealand Rugby “pays the salary of the top 150 players and that is why they retain the core of their best players”.
I for one like the system we have in place. I don’t begrudge players going overseas one bit – in fact, I would be a hypocrite if I did as I’m working overseas myself – but I believe the system we have in place has enabled our success, so why would we want to mess around with it?
New Zealand has “a blanket, categoric, non-negotiable ruling that only players contracted to the New Zealand rugby union can be picked for the All Blacks. There are no exceptions, but there are two previous examples – Sonny Bill Williams and Luke McAlister – who were granted permission to be picked for the All Blacks despite not playing in the preceding domestic competition”.
And then in 2008, the ‘sabbatical clause’ was introduced. However, Steve Tew is on record saying that as the market is competitive, they’re “constantly reviewing what [they’re] doing, and if circumstances changed, then [they’d] be foolish not to think about it“. So while the powers that be in New Zealand Rugby are happy with the present situation, it could very well change in the future.
The system Rugby South Africa has in place allows selection to the national team for overseas-based players only “if they have 30 Springbok caps under the belt”. Australia have “loosened their stance to open eligibility to offshore players who have seven years’ Test experience and 60 caps”.
According to Greg Peters, former general manager of Unión Argentina de Rugby, “Pre-2007 they all played offshore and went overseas very young”; however, the inclusion of the Jaguars into Super Rugby saw many of the offshore players return to Argentina.
Samoa, Fiji and Tonga are the worst affected and “select their players as and when possible, which is generally only during Rugby World Cups”. England “previously picked French-based players but currently don’t allow it”, but they do have an “in exceptional circumstances” clause which allows the coach “to pick whoever he likes as long as he can make a case to justify it”. France, Ireland and Wales have no restrictions in place.
(Image: Mark Nolan/Getty Images)
According to Atcher, “We have a responsibility to support the development of rugby in the world because, if we don’t do anything, in five to ten years you will have two, three to four teams on the same level and that’s all, and then rugby will die”.
Personally, I don’t see France as rugby’s saviour. Perhaps if the French Rugby Federation were as concerned with the health of the global game as they’re implying, then they would be putting more effort into developing the game in their own country. How can the country with arguably the best club competition in the world be only eighth in World Rugby rankings?
Austin Healey suggested that “French rugby is set up to almost actively hinder the national side” due to having the “least amount of access and control over their players” of any tier-one nation. In 2016 the Top 14 final was on 24 June and the preseason for the national team started in July.
“Some of their guys are playing 40 games a year where England play in the low 30s and Ireland’s in the high 20s,” he said. The number of games being played and the toll that has on the players leaves “no time to be doing speed work or working on their skill”.
Former head coach Philippe Saint-Andre blames the Top 14 for the inconsistency of French rugby: “The Top 14 has a budget of €150 million ($A225 million) and the FFR is €100 million … The league is much bigger than the federation”.
Saint-Andre speaks of how wonderful the Top 14 is, boasting some of the world’s best players and packed stadia, but “afterwards you watch some starting teams with two or three French players in the starting XV or you are struggling to find wingers [for the national team] because 70 per cent of the wings are from overseas it starts to be a big problem”. As Saint-Andre asserts, “We need our young players to play and develop their game”.
The Top 14 is guilty of undermining the national team by not releasing players, as was the case with the 2016 tour of Argentina in which they lost the first Test 30-19, and by recalling players during the designated ‘rest weeks’. Saint-Andrew would like to see an agreement between the French Rugby Federation and the Top 14 along the same lines that Rob Andrew devised with the Premiership. Namely, “the selection of home-grown talent and limited internationals’ game time”. France have tried to implement such rules in the past but they failed. Hopefully with or without a successful Rugby World Cup bid they will have more success in the future with any such implementation.
(AFP PHOTO / FRANCK FIFE)
After the 62-13 defeat to New Zealand in the 2015 Rugby World Cup Steve Hansen said, “there are so many foreigners playing in their teams and leagues here that they’re taking the chance off local talent to grow and develop and so they limit who they can select at international level”. He likened what’s happening to rugby in France to the English football league – the league might be the best in the world, but it doesn’t reflect in the national team.
He asserts that the New Zealand model works because domestic rugby supports the international team. “If you want to be successful at international rugby, you have to be united from the top to the bottom, and I’m not sure they are up here”.
Compare the New Zealand model to that in the northern hemisphere. According to Iain Payten, “In Europe clubs exist to win premierships and test rugby sits separately. Clubs pay the players and they generally couldn’t give a stuff about whether England or France win the Six Nations”.
And there’s the rub. For the million/billionaire owners, owning a rugby team is the “new luxury yacht: a vanity plaything,” Payten says. How is that ever going to be good for world rugby? I would like to think that the purchase of a rugby club is due to a love of rugby, but the must-win-at-all-costs (that is, buy the best players in the world) philosophy is nothing more than ego-driven or instant gratification. It’s not about the sport; it’s about the win, and if the national team suffers as a result, who cares.
I for one think World Rugby should care!
Shouldn’t the responsibility lie with World Rugby? Surely as the governing body of the global game, they’re ultimately responsible not just for the development of the sport but also for the preservation of it. Why not bring in salary caps for the players? Or limit the number of foreigners a club team can have? France tried to introduce a rule to do this, but the clubs found loopholes which they exploited. Shouldn’t World Rugby ensure there are no loopholes?
Atcher named New Zealand, South Africa, Australia, and Italy as unions who showed losses in their financial reports. He added that while Wales, Scotland and Ireland are not flush, they are at least “balanced in terms of budget”, but stated it was only England and France who made a profit. I get that England and France are the richest unions, but surely the right to host the Rugby World Cup should not be granted on wealth alone – is that not contrary to the whole development philosophy of World Rugby?
I see the French offer of the additional £30 million as a very dangerous precedent. If World Rugby accept it, what does that mean for the future of Rugby World Cups? Will the cup only ever be staged by those few countries that can afford to pay more than the asking price? I sincerely hope not, but I fear the answer is yes.
JB
Roar Rookie
I fail to see the point of your article. For a start, World Rugby has no power to restrict the number of foreign players. There are European Laws that guarantee the right of access to the European labour market for a certain number of countries. World Rugby has absolutely no power to overrule those laws. World Rugby does not governed the national rugby bodies and cannot enforce rules such as a salary cap in France or in England. The only ones who can do that are the bodies running the professional clubs. For your information, the French Rugby Federation has no power over the professional clubs which are under the jurisdiction of the LNR. They recently negotiated an agreement to have better access to a certain number of players but that is all they can do. The power of money talks and, unfortunately, there is nothing World Rugby can do to prevent Fijian or Samoan players to leave their country to earn a decent living in Europe. It is sad but it is the reality that, locally, there is not no money to retain those players. The sad thing is that clubs in Europe have regularly threatened those players from salary cuts if they went to play for their country of birth (they are usually forced to state they have "retired" from international rugby). More appalling is the new policy we are seeing of getting teenagers from those islands to Europe so that they can be trained and play for England or France in the future. That practice should be stop at all costs for the sake of English and French kids wanting to play rugby. The other two countries that are vying for the organising rights to the World Cup aren't clean either with Ireland having a very well defined policy or luring young South African players to include them in the Irish system (CJ Stander for a start) and South Africa, by introducing racially based quotas is forcing entire hordes of white players to flee to Europe and become eligible to play for their country of adoption. The World Cup should be awarded to a country that has not organised it yet, therefore Ireland should be the one.
Cathal
Guest
Ireland clearly have the best bid, anyone I see who has been against it have literally wrote their opinion about why the Irish hosting is a bad idea without giving a genuine reason or when they have literally resorting to cliches like size and population which is completely irrelevant some even going as far as to saying the North and South hosting together is dangerous which is complete and utter nonsense unless you were born without a brain, even listening to the Green and Gold podcast the host of the show clearly doesn't support the Irish bid for whatever reason so had to randomly throw in that Ireland are hosting games in America in order to turn the guests off the idea of Ireland hosting also.
Bay35Pablo
Roar Guru
"New Zealand players are lured north after retirement from international rugby or if they have too many other players ahead of them in their favoured position or if they’re not in consideration for a place" Wrong. This used to be the case, as it was for Australian players. Over the last few years it has changed, as the amount of money on offer has increased. European rugby is now poaching players in the prime of their career, and who have been picked or would be picked for the ABs. It is a huge problem, and one unlikely to be fixed by World Rugby or the RFU or FFR anytime soon. The money and thus power is with the clubs. They don't care. SANZAAR doesn't have enough money to compete, or enough clout to get rules changed. Also in issue is that EU rules make it hard to bring in foreign player caps, which the clubs resist anyway. Why spend years and money developing local players when you don't have to, and you have heaps of cash to throw at off the rack talent from the South?
NaBUru38
Guest
"France has stated that a successful bid to host the 2023 World Cup 'would help in attempts to stop its Top 14 clubs luring southern hemisphere players to Europe'." So to prevent Southern players to end in European clubs, let's play the World Cup in Europe? That makes absolutely no sense.
Ulrich
Guest
As a Saffa I would just like to add that we offered more than the French. Quite frankly at this point I don't care. It's not like we have money to throw around, but this country of all countries could do with some good news rugby-wise (or any news for that matter). This is our fourth successive bid. 28 Years is a long time to wait. Our smallest stadium is about 44000. All legislation is already in place. If France or Ireland get it it would be the third RWC in succession for the Northern hemisphere. The final would be hosted in front of 87 000 not too far from Soweto. Africa is one of the fastest growing rugby landscapes in the world.
richard
Guest
The NBA is king because there is no real competition for the US team.They are so superior to all opposition.
Wardad
Guest
To add to their bid I see the French have dragged Jonah Lomuhs kids in to support their bid .Why they are there is dodgy to say the least .
Johnno
Guest
Same applies I'm basketball and ice hockey e.g. NBA/NHL are king not international matches between nations..
cuw
Guest
" Recent developments in unemployment at a European and Member State level Eurostat estimates that 18.916 million men and women in the EU-28[1], of whom 14.860 million were in the euro area (EA-19)[2], were unemployed in July 2017. Compared with June 2017, the number of persons unemployed increased by 93 000 in the EU-28 and by 73 000 in the euro area. Compared with July 2016, unemployment fell by 1.928 million in the EU-28 and by 1.309 million in the euro area. The euro area seasonally-adjusted unemployment rate was 9.1 % in July 2017, stable compared to June 2017 and down from 10.0 % in July 2016. The EU28 unemployment rate was 7.7 % in July 2017, stable compared to June 2017 and down from 8.5 % in July 2016. Among the Member States, the lowest unemployment rates in July 2017 were recorded in the Czech Republic (2,9 %), Germany (3.7 %) and Malta (4.1 %). The highest unemployment rates were observed in Greece (21.7 % in May 2017) and Spain (17.1 %). Compared with a year ago, the unemployment rate fell in all Member States for which data is comparable over time, except Finland where it remained stable. The largest decreases were registered in Croatia (from 13.2 % to 10.6 %), Spain (from 19.6 % to 17.1 %), Slovakia (from 9.7 % to 7.3 %) and Cyprus (from 13.0 % to 10.8 %). In July 2017, the unemployment rate in the United States was 4.3 %, down from 4.4 % in June 2017 and from 4.9 % in July 2016. In July 2017, 3.792 million young persons (under 25) were unemployed in the EU28, of whom 2.670 million were in the euro area. Compared with July 2016, youth unemployment decreased by 450 000 in the EU28 and by 272 000 in the euro area. In July 2017, the youth unemployment rate was 16.9 % in the EU28 and 19.1 % in the euro area, compared with 18.7 % and 20.8 % respectively in July 2016. In July 2017, the lowest rate was observed in Germany (6.5 %), while the highest were recorded in Greece (44.4 % in May 2017), Spain (38.6 %) and Italy (35.5 %). "
Zakaia Cvitanovich
Guest
Totally agree with you
Mark Fredericks
Guest
I could not agree more.
taylorman
Guest
Yes I saw that in the write up, another Blues man prospering elsewhere.
Torchbearer
Guest
Yes- (as much as I love Japan)... I like the love shared around! Brazil had the World Cup and Olympics two years apart- and it wasn't ideal.
Ad-0
Guest
Let's face facts here. The reason why NZ rugby is geared towards the All Blacks is because without them the NZRU would be totally irrelevant. There is no moral superiority here, just cold hard bottom line. The biggest brand in the sport is the ABs and NZ is just not big enough to have a viable domestic competition that can compete financially. The fact is that TV rights for sports have a long way to grow. If anyone has paid any attention to the way Facebook and Amazon are valuing EPL soccer games then their is going to be a big war for sports rights very soon. European clubs play 30-50 games worth of content. The ABs only 10-12. The maths doesn't work for the NZRU or international rugby in the long run. Its only a matter of time before French and English clubs are making offers too big to refuse. And the IRB or anyone else can't do a damn thing about it. Just look at how cricket bent over to the IPL.
Bakkies
Guest
Ireland is one of the fastest growing economies in Europe and the unemployment rate is now around 6.1%. Time to stop lumping Ireland with basket cases like France, Italy, Spain and Greece.
Bakkies
Guest
'Then if something similar to a mini recession occurs, and overseas players return home, you get weak domestic and International quality competition in the north, and with hundreds of players returning south, huge competition for spots, far too many players to accommodate.' That didn't occur in Europe during the biggest recession since the Great Depression. Players still went north in big numbers.
Bakkies
Guest
'I doubt world rugby has the power to restrict clubs signing o/s players , it would be challenged in the courts and I suspect they would lose in France.' The clubs already have limits on the amount of foreign players they can have in their squad and in France if you don't comply will get docked points. The loophole which isn't one as it is in writing and compliant with IRB eligibility laws is related to young academy players who are working towards residency and will be French eligibility. Even if they are it doesn't mean the French national coach will select them. 'Why not bring in salary caps for the players?' There are already salary caps in Wales, England and France. Clubs in France are also audited so they can only spend a certain percentage of their budget in salaries and rack up unsustainable debts. This doesn't occur in England and there clubs who regularly rack up multi million pound losses. Time people directed their target towards the English not the French.
Highlander
Guest
none of those are within 150x the japan govt debt to gdp ratio - place is cactus economically
Johnno
Guest
Um so does UK and america have big debt as does australia, and so does france and ireland, most countries are in massive debts get over that..
AussieIrish
Guest
Unless you have lived in Europe most Australians do not realise that second largest sport is Handball. The sponsorship that Handball receives dwarf the money received by Rugby in France. Another, thing that many Australian Rugby supporters don't know about is the attempt by French Rugby to unseat the popularity of French Handball, in the 1980s. They tried to take on French Handball by very unfair and less than honest means and came off second best.