The howls of anguish from their fans when Celtic’s treble-winning manager Ange Postecoglou departed the club on Monday reflected the immense popularity of the Greek-Australian, but when Tottenham Hotspur came calling there was only ever going to be one answer.
In professional sport, money shouts, and given that Spurs were offering him many times more money than Celtic, Postecoglou at 57 probably calculated that this might be his last chance to manage a top English club and earn a fortune to set up his retirement pension.
Frankly I am amazed that English Premier League clubs don’t carry out more raids on the Scottish game, given the huge disparity in resources between their top clubs and ours. They always used to do so, and for decades many a club in Scotland was given a huge cash boost when the English snapped up our best players, with only Celtic and Rangers able to resist them.
It has been my fear for some time that England’s Premiership clubs needed only to whistle and Scottish rugby’s coaches and players would come running to them, simply because they would earn a lot more money down south.
The career of a professional rugby player is short, with most individuals ending their playing days in their early to mid-thirties. Coaches can have long careers, but only if they are successful, and there are not too many in that category.
Can Scottish rugby prevent the talent drain to England? I am writing this the day after one of our better young players, Rhys Tait, left Glasgow Warriors to join Doncaster Knights who play in the second tier Championship.
There is a bit more to his move than just a simple cash-backed swoop for a 20-year-old back-row player who formerly captained Scotland’s Under-20 team.
As Tait himself explained, he enjoyed his previous loan spell at Doncaster. “I was welcomed into the squad straight away by all the players and coaches, and I really enjoyed the tight-knit group atmosphere in training and games, so I’m delighted to have signed for the Knights for next season,” he said.
It is sad to see him go, but with Warriors having a wealth of back rowers, it was always going to be difficult for him to break into the first XV. And since it is the Scottish Rugby Union who call the shots for our two professional clubs, they can perhaps see the sense in letting Tait go to a promising English club where he can mature as a player and hopefully go up to the Premiership and be capped for Scotland. I wish him all the best for the future.
It is hard to see how the talent drain can be plugged, especially when the SRU are the funder of our professional clubs and just don’t have the money to pay the salaries of too many players. Nor can the governing body as owners and funders of Edinburgh Rugby and Glasgow Warriors attract new investment for no sensible business person is going to invest serious money into a club he or she can’t run for themselves.
Then again, maybe in the light of England’s Premiership crises this season, it could be argued that the SRU are doing the right thing by not pouring in endless oodles of cash.
I am writing this even before the announcement of London Irish’s fate, as HMRC have already issued the club with a winding-up order. That usually means curtains for a club, and I expect them to fold immediately as they just haven’t completed the expected takeover.
I hope I’m wrong but I expect the Brentford-based club to not be in the Premiership next season. They are joining Wasps and Worcester in the dugout of ignominy and there could be more.
It is no secret that Exeter Chiefs and the once all-powerful Leicester Tigers are having money problems. Indeed the latter club appealed for cash this year as it emerged the Tigers were in what chief executive Andrea Pinchen described as “very challenging conditions”, with the Press Association reporting that “a letter from the club to shareholders sent in March stated that if the funding was not approved, there would be no option but to appoint administrators”.
If the Chiefs and the Tigers were to collapse into administration, English rugby would be facing catastrophe, one that is foreseeable as there is already going to be a relaunch of the Premiership next year.
So my advice to any player or coach thinking of going south is this – by all means go for the bigger pot of cash you will get, but first of all you and your agent should check the club’s accounts. Any doubt about a club being a going concern should ring alarm bells.
We Scots are conditioned from birth to think England is bigger and better but as the Premiership crisis deepens, be aware that it is not always greener on the other side of the Border.
