England are refusing to make big financial concessions to their cash-strapped southern hemisphere rivals and will oppose the idea of sharing the vast revenues generated by autumn Twickenham internationals. Instead Ian Ritchie, the Rugby Football Union’s chief executive, has advised New Zealand and Australia to “go and build a bigger stadium” if they wish to boost their profits.
Ritchie is fully aware discussions are continuing regarding the global calendar beyond 2019 but has ruled out any changes to the financial “bedrocks” of the Six Nations and November Tests that have helped make the RFU the richest union in the world. He also points out New Zealand will retain all the revenue generated from the 2017 Lions tour and sees no reason to amend existing arrangements.
“I’m not sure I get this argument,” said Ritchie, stressing the northern hemisphere unions have all invested heavily in building bigger, better stadiums. “If we manage to sell out 82,000 here it’s because of our efforts and because we’ve invested in the stadium. If you look at the amount of money the RFU has spent on Twickenham … of course we should get a return on that. Of course they would say they want more money. There is nothing to stop Australia or New Zealand building a [bigger] stadium. Go and build a stadium if you want to increase your revenue growth. When we went to Australia in the summer we didn’t get anything out of that. I didn’t ask for a revenue share from Australia. And ditto from the Lions. So I don’t see why there is a particularly strong case for arguing the other way. I’ve not seen a lot of problems with their lack of sustainability in terms of our difficulties in beating southern hemisphere teams.”
Ritchie also denies any bust-up with his New Zealand counterpart Steve Tew regarding a possible fourth autumn Test between England and New Zealand at Twickenham in November next year, following the Lions tour. “We’ve never had a discussion or a fallout over money about having a fixture,” said Ritchie, suggesting England might no longer seek to pay visiting sides to play them outside the Test window as has been the case. “If you throw everything up in the air you might say: ‘Why would you pay that?’”
As things stand, New Zealand are not scheduled to face England home or away before 2018, with Ritchie also pouring cold water on the notion of a unified global season. “As I understand it the southern hemisphere don’t want to play in [their] summer and neither do we, so bringing those calendars together becomes very difficult,” he said. “We still see rugby as a winter sport.”
England are looking at ways to increase the stock of English coaches capable of taking over when Eddie Jones departs as national coach. Ritchie expects Jones to step aside at the end of 2019 – “I’m working on that assumption because that’s what we based the deal on in the first place” – and is looking for “a seamless transition” involving English-born coaches who have operated outside the Premiership.
The RFU’s professional rugby director, Nigel Melville, hopes to liaise with the clubs to help give up-and-coming coaches more international experience, either with England’s age-group and Saxons squads, or overseas. “I think it’s been proved that just being a Premiership coach does not necessarily make you a good international coach,” Melville said. “We need to work together to develop the next generation of international coaches. There are some great young coaches out there who could be fantastic coaches in the future.”
