A new future for Spanish rugby

Just for people's information of professional clubs in Europe outside the 3 leagues and how it could run the 4th league. Currently Russia has 8-10 professional clubs while Rominia has 4-6. Spain has 10-12 but much lower standard and pay. Georgia, Isreal & Portugal have 1 each via the Super Cup. Belgium and Netherlands technically have one each but they are really semi-pro. Italy while a T1 nation does have the Top10 which often provides teams for the europran challenge cup and is of the same standard as the Eastern teams. Like with the Currie Cup moving to Jan - June if the other leagues did this it would allow them to play the Super Cup or whatever the league ends up being called from August - October getting the teams ready for the November internationals and teams quailifed for the Challenge Cup to recruit as needed. I have no doubt the Currie Cup was moved for this very reason.

South Africa would be more of a feeder league outside the URC than in it. Financially they will be just below the English teams and on par with the URC teams. There will always be SA players abroad as they would need at least 8-10 professional teams to keep them all at home. Currie Cup would not be financially viable and it also cuts them off politically from to many people. English club competition is heading down the Oz route and the PRL could be running out of money. RFU is not connected so unaffected. French Rugby has 2.5 professional levels with about 40 professional clubs, England has 1.5 levels and 20 clubs. SA will be fine as the URC money starts to come through plus the euro money.

For years the T2 & T3 European nations believed that relying on the 3 professional leagues would be ok to run test rugby teams. They found out it didn't work. The South American league has shown that it is the best way to get the young u20s into the test team quicker. Europe has the best T2 u20 standards so Europe had to do something. Add in the alignment with Africa and we are seeing movement. South Africa losing the WC and the WR election results showed them how unconnected they were to different places compared to France who was building structures for unions. Euro Competitions will probably soon be 24 teams each. The 3 leagues will have 44 teams (16+14+14) meaning they need a fourth league/competition to add in 4 more teams. URC driven by SA is working on something to help develop players (due to less games to blood players) while also eyeing extra euro spots. To counter this Rugby Europe brought in the Super Cup and made sure each team had the money to fund the team for 4 years. Ultimately the URC T2 and Super Cup will combine allowing the young URC players get games against better opposition while also providing a higher standard to the T2 European nations. The eastern conference is far higher standards to the western conference meaning that Spain and Portugal teams will struggle but it still helps them long term. Long term this allows all T2 & T3 nation to have fully professional players playing 20-25 games a season between club and international.

I'm probably going to do a preview of the upcoming MLR season including the rumoured 2023 expansion bids. I might put some of these tidbits. Could even try to see if I can get enough on the upcoming SLAR season and make it a combined piece There's heaps of very interesting things happening in the global game.

Good on ya WCR, you could easily write an article on emerging rugby. It could be the start of a marketing campaign into Australian schools to promote the international career opportuntiies provided by rugby :thumbup:

Thanks, a really interesting article. Also provides a bit of context as to having 2 World Series tournaments in Spain. Whilst I have no idea, it seems it would be better develop a competition without Sth Africa, as you say there are more disadvantages to have them than advantages to have them. Good luck to both Portugal and Spain. Neither needs another reason to visit but a bit of rugby might influence the time of year I visit.

Thanks for the article. An ex student from a school I use to work played in Spain a couple of seasons ago. He is Tongan International James Faiva. He is now at an Italian club. There was also some sad news a couple of weeks ago when a player who was set to represent Spain fell off a deck and died. His name was Kawa Leauma. He was on Tongan heritage and played for a handful of clubs in Auckland when he was younger. Was a tragedy.

my two favourite teams at the europe trophy comp this past season were malta and lithuania..poland also drew some good home crowds..

I’ll be interested to see if the Madrid group are the same that bid unsuccessfully for a place in the RESC. The Diables team have apparently been wanting to meet with FER with little luck. Not sure on that. But hopefully we see some kind of cooperation between all parties even if they don’t compete in the same structure. As either way providing increased levels of competition can only help improve the national team and draw in Spanish qualified players.

G’day TE. Thanks for the article and the information contained. It seems that rugby is not waiting for World Rugby to initiate or even help with the growth of the game. Having said that, there was one sentence that worried me. The new privately run competition is separate to that of the Spanish Rugby Federation, which creates a wave of doubt as the wants of private owners may differ to the administration body. Let’s hope that the national team doesn’t suffer the disconnect other national teams in Europe have.

Sorry if I've taken over a bit but just to add one last post on the topic of growth of the professional game. Recently the president of the Japanese League One mentioned the leagues interest in welcoming foreign based teams into their structures. Most notably teams from Korea and Hong Kong. He specifically mentioned both of them as primary locations while suggesting Malaysia etc. could be an option down the track. The president of Korea's top team Hyundai Glovis actually respinded by stating they intend to bid for entry into the League One structure in 2025 which is the earliest timeframe the structure has to expand. Korean Rugby is in a bit of an early growth spurt as well. Their national league which has for a long time only had 4 teams looks set to grow to 6/7 teams depending in the next few season with one of those potential team OK Financial Group looking to aggressively spread Rugby into the schools system in Korea. Which should be interesting. Over to Africa. It was reported today (in the Zimbabwean press) that the Sables, Kenya and Namibia will compete in the the CC 1st Division this year (the 2nd Tier competition) alongside the current 7 SA based provinces and the Georgia Black Lions (as part of the SARU and GRFU 11 year development agreement). Which is very interesting to see. The three African nations were set to compete in the SuperSport Challenge later in the year but seem to have managed tan upgrade. Kenya also played in the Cheetahs comp alongside the Diables and Baia Mare from Romania.

The recent growth of professional Rugby is something we should be both very excited about as fans but a little nervous about as well. We all know the threat of the Big 3 (now 4) NH competitions. But it goes deeper now. Once upon a time it was our top talent that were on the radar. Now, it's the really good club level players that are being targeted. It's not just a case of the Top 14, Premiership, URC and Japan targeting players. But there's the ProD2, Federale 1 and rapidly professionalising Federale 2 in France. The Top 10 in Italy. The Russian PRL continues to grow in both the number of teams and the size of their budgets, Japan has 3 divisions two of which are professional. There's MLR and now RESC. All capable of providing compelling offers to draw player abroad. The only new league not much of a threat is SLAR but that's because they draw heavily from Argentina. The world of professional Rugby is evolving and it's something we need to address. We need an equivalent here. A competition that provides players with the opportunity to push further up the ladder of professionalism and keep them here as opposed to jetting off to the States, Japan or Europe. While we still have systems in place to corral the best emerging talent the threat posed is that of depth. Which could very quickly be eroded.

Italian involvement isn't impossible. I actually like the idea of the FIR setting up and running a development franchise in the RESC. I think if we saw a situation where the RESC and SA comps were combined it would be a lot more likely.

It's happening already. They've been several players from the Shute Shield signed to Major League Rugby clubs in the US. The money isn't huge. Likely somewhere between $30-40k AUD a season not including housing etc. but its enough to draw players over for the experience of playing in something that's still very new and exciting while earning much more than they could playing club footy here while being rugby professionals. I'm not sure if the RESC will draw players in much the same way just yet but I for sure think it could be attractive for players with the necessary backgrounds to at least have a look. You'd imagine players like David Horwitz would be on the Heat radar etc.

I think the fact that is has the backing of the three Castilla y Leon clubs is a recognition of the once held ambition of transitioning the Division de Honor from semi-professional to professional may not be possible post-Covid. It was an ask pre-Covid for many clubs but now probably impossible. Which isn't a bad thing. It could allow clubs to refocus on growth instead of paying more and more to compete while encouraging strong regions like Valencia which has a strong and growing scene producing an ever increasing number of young players to look to compete for higher honours.

Okay. So on the RESC. Having watched most of the games this year it's difficult to judge exactly where both the Lusitanos and Iberian sit going into the semi-finals. The Eastern conference featuring two Russian clubs (Enisei-STM and Lokomotive Penza), the Georgia Black Lions and Tel-Aviv Heat was very even while the Western saw both the Delta (the Netherlands) and Brussels Devils being handily beaten by both Lusitanos and the Iberians. That said, it's still pretty interesting to see the RESC get up and running. Each of the franchises are committed to 4 seasons while the Russian clubs only 2. In regards to growing the league they want to reach 16 teams by season 5 and while Germany and Romania have been mentioned as potential choices (should be noted Romania would have entered if financing had been available) but the only two have been made public are Poland and Czechia. Poland apparently has the Union and a JV of clubs in the Tri-Cities while Czechia would be Union backed bid. RE is also open to left of field entrant in the Heat vain. Who came out of nowhere. This season they kept it strictly to the conferences in terms of in season games but hopefully in the years to come they can sort out a proper league schedule as team enter the fray. On Spain. The Diables did feature 18 Barcelona based players but it should be noted the bulk of those came from two 2nd Division clubs as the two Division De Honor clubs (Barcelona and Santboiana) while backing the concept chose not release players this time round. The Madrid team also apparently has the support of the Madrid based clubs. But we don't know much about that nor do we know much about the mooted competition in which they'll play. I will say I'm not a fan of having two competitions splitting teams. I'd rather both groups work out some kind of combined structure. I think that would be a better outcome for all concerned. The Cheetahs concept seems to be in order to maintain their sponsorship arrangement with Toyota and if so I think a combined concept would ultimately benefit them as well. Just spit-balling here but a combined structure could featuring two - 8 team conferences. With 3 SA teams in the Cheetahs, Griquas and Pumas joining the Eastern conference alongside Tel-Aviv, the Black Lions, Enisei, 2nd Russian squad based on placing in Russian Championship which at present would be Slava Moscow and the Bucreasti Wolves. While the Western conference would feature the Lusitanos, Iberians, Diables Barcelona, Madrid Gatos (Gatos was the name of the short lived Madrid team in the Superiberica De Rugby concept several years ago. The first attempt to introduce professional franchises to the Spanish landscape and I quite liked the name ), Delta, Brussels Devils and a Polish and Czech side. They could either go a double round robin for 14 games or split them into two pools of 4 playing home and away in each pool and each team from the other pool in their conference for 10 games with the top 4 qualifying for the finals either way. I think that would be a pretty compelling competition. In the future Germany and the likes of Servette Genf who are working their way through the French system could be targeted alongside second teams in places like Georgia and Romania in the east. The goal of several of these teams should be to not only provide their national squads more game time and exposure but also to attempt to capture as many foreign based players of the respective heritages as possible as means to bolster the overall competitive level of each national team.

Good stuff, thanks TE.

Brilliant article TE! Our beautiful game is global and we have missed articles like this by the likes of Istanbul Wingman. Keep them coming please!