If rugby’s continuing financial monkey puzzle is not your bag, then that’s perfectly understandable. There are better ways of spending the next five minutes, so look away because I don’t pretend to have the answers. Any answers in fact.
So why talk about the subject? We’re muddling along and have been for the decade and a half since professional rugby arrived. Well, here are four reasons and they came to the fore at roughly the same time.
First was that annual reckoning that English rugby has with Europe and this year three of our four Premiership clubs (it could easily have been all four) left at the quarter-final stage. Second, Saracens, who got through to the semi‑finals of the Champions Cup by the skin of their teeth, admitted to cumulative debts of £40m. Third, Dai Young, whose young Wasps side fought bravely but in vain against the might and the millions of Toulon, bit the bullet and said changes were needed to the salary cap if clubs such as his – the last English winners of the Heineken Cup, remember – were ever to return to winning ways.
And finally Gloucester, a club in which I once invested a decade of my life, admitted they were up for sale to the right bidder, which begs the question: why, given the three earlier issues, would anyone want to buy a club like Gloucester?
I can see what the fans would like – someone like Bruce Craig at Bath, who is going to come in and spend his millions – but why would a right-thinking businessman ever consider that rugby was a good return for, in this case, something like a £25m investment.
The answer, of course, is that they don’t. In fact it’s the opposite. To snuggle up alongside their dream, they are quite prepared to suspend all those disciplines which made them a success in business. I was alongside Sir John Hall at Newcastle after rugby went professional and I know.
So is the concept of progressional rugby possible? Obviously yes, because New Zealand has shown how. It has a great national team – the benchmark by which the sport has to be judged – and a structure that produces both tomorrow’s All Black stars and quality rugby worth watching. Success from top (the Test side) to bottom (the clubs) by way of a progressive structure that commands support up and down the land.
The flip side is that only New Zealand has got it right. To a greater or lesser degree everyone else is failing. The wealthiest, the French, so powerful at club level, are bumping along in mediocrity on the international stage. The more their businessmen pump in at Toulon, Stade Français and Clermont Auvergne, the more confused their national side become, and you could never promise the same wouldn’t happen here if the purse strings were suddenly slackened.
How would that extra money be spent? Probably to bring in more stars from the southern hemisphere. Guys such as Will Genia, who took a look here before deciding there was more on offer with Stade than Bath, or Dan Carter, said to be getting £1.4m from Racing Métro. Is that money well spent? There may be a few more bums on Parisian seats next season but the France coach will have one fewer scrum-half and fly-half from whom to choose.
So how do we spend the extra that a new BT Sport deal brings? Certainly it will reduce the gap between those marquee deals offered by the French and what can be afforded by the English, but I’d be happier to see Twickenham and the Premiership concentrate on what’s currently happening over here.
Stick by the current ruling that to play for England you have to play in England. There will always be counter‑arguments, such as the loss of Steffon Armitage or Nick Abendanon, but it’s for the greater good, given that, for the vast majority, the dream of playing for England is more influential than the money, and use the cash to mend what is mendable.
A lot of tosh is spoken about England being the powerhouse of world rugby. In terms of the numbers kicking a ball around every weekend there is a statistical argument but survey the resources from which Stuart Lancaster will pick England’s World Cup squad and you are looking at a paddling pool rather than a reservoir.
In New Zealand I, as an international, could and often did drop down two levels and still played competitive rugby. Not over here. On a graph plotting quality, New Zealand would show a steady rise from club through franchise to All Black level. Here you have the Premiership and probably a handful of Championship sides before the graph falls off a precipice.
How to fix that? Maybe make the Championship a meaningful and competitive arena, somewhere our stars of tomorrow need if they are to develop? Well, it isn’t at the moment and that undermines the whole concept of promotion and relegation to and from the Premiership.
I’m emotionally in favour of promotion but the experience of London Welsh has shown that with the current rules and limitations in place promotion is only one step away from relegation. Forget Exeter – I would argue that they are a one-off and that professional rugby needs time to think and build a business plan for both the Premiership and the Championship. And that probably means a 14-team Premiership, fenced for a couple of seasons so decent foundations can be put down.
Would that attract a buyer for Gloucester? Possibly. And it’s what happens in New Zealand.
