Talks between the major rugby unions about a global season have stalled, raising fears that there will be no international calendar after the 2019 World Cup outside official tournaments, such as the Six Nations and the Rugby Championship.
The major southern hemisphere nations have long argued for a global season which would separate club and international fixtures to synchronise the playing calendar. The New Zealand head coach, Steve Hansen, has described the current schedule as “bordering on the ludicrous” and detrimental to player welfare, but three years of talks have yielded little.
A global season would mean changing the timing of events and ending the June and November international windows when countries fly out at the end of nine- or 10-month seasons. The four home unions are split about starting the Six Nations later in the year – England and Ireland are opposed while Scotland and Wales, whose chief executives were hired from the business world, are in favour.
If the Six Nations remains anchored in the calendar, there will be no global season. New Zealand have said that unless changes are made they will not sign up to a new international fixture schedule after 2019 and will negotiate Test fixtures individually. The current system arranges tours years in advance, allowing countries to plan financially. Among this year’s autumn internationals, Ireland host the All Blacks and Australia in November, while England and Wales welcome the Australians and South Africa, but without a schedule drawn up by World Rugby and signed off by all the countries involved a bidding war would break out and threaten poorer unions’ finances.
Countries on tour receive none of the income generated by the matches they are involved in and only have their expenses, such as flights and hotels, paid. New Zealand made little more from this summer’s three-Test tour against Wales than the Welsh Rugby Union bank from one match against the All Blacks in Cardiff.
That has led the southern hemisphere nations to propose that income from Tests is pooled and divided equally among the tier one nations. There is little appetite for that in Europe and that attitude has hardened New Zealand’s resolve to go it alone, although Wales and Scotland are open to a debate. The All Blacks, along with Australia and South Africa, believe Europe’s greater financial muscle has allowed clubs, especially in France, to plunder leading players from the southern hemisphere and threaten their game’s income driver, Test rugby.
A consequence of no international calendar would mean that Lions tours would have to be negotiated. The current deal between the home unions and New Zealand, Australia and South Africa ends after the 2017 series with the All Blacks, with talks to extend it jammed in the global season debate.
More talks are scheduled for the autumn before World Rugby’s council meeting, but clubs have yet to be given a formal role in the negotiations, despite the impact any change would have on their fixtures. Officials at this week’s Guinness Pro12 launch spoke of their frustration and they want to be given a voice, along with Premiership Rugby and the Top 14, to help break the impasse.
The Rugby Football Union chief executive, Ian Ritchie, is trying to mediate but his union’s entrenched position on the Six Nations and income distribution has meant he has not got far. Its former chairman Bill Beaumont made a global season a priority when he took over as World Rugby’s chairman last month, even saying that the Six Nations had to be flexible, but as time passes with nothing being achieved, the world leaders New Zealand are making plans for a very different future.
Meanwhile the Australia centre Kurtley Beale has arrived at Wasps but does not know when he will be fit to make his debut three months after suffering a patella tendon injury. Bath have appointed the flanker Guy Mercer as their new captain, although he will have to vie for his place after the Rugby Championship with the South Africa breakaway Francois Louw. George Ford, the England outside-half who was reported to want to leave the club after his father, Mike, was sacked as director of rugby three months ago, has been named vice-captain.
