EDINBURGH EVENING NEWS REPORTS

BILL LOTHIAN


WHEN the barricades came down and rugby went professional most assumed that the oval ball game would know its place and develop structures roughly modelled on "big brother" football.

Nothing if not single-minded, though, rugby, in fact, decided to beat its own path.

The result has been fascinating in many ways but now contrasting ideologies over matters such as promotion and relegation are emerging.

So, it is time to ask: Has the new kid on the block got it right by devising a formula for 21st century sport - or is there just no substitute for the evolutionary processes undergone by football?

Let's examine the facts.

Unburdened by the baggage of a century of professional tradition, rugby has been able to pioneer the way in areas such as cross border competition, while many football clubs still hanker after tournaments such as the much-vaunted North Atlantic League to provide fresh impetus.

In short, pro rugby's domestic boundaries stretch from Galway to Glasgow or Belfast to the Borders so far as the Celtic League is concerned.

Similarly, these competitions have been designed along American lines with no promotion or relegation - a situation which the English rugby club owners are now looking to emulate, citing the potentially catastrophic financial effects of the drop on investors in a recent report.

As Nigel Wray, bankroller of Saracens, memorably said in relation to the closed league argument: "If you have a one-year lease on a flat do you put a new bathroom in?"

But is rugby in danger of going too far especially with the Scottish club Premiership showing signs of going down a similar road with a motion set before this month's SRU annual meeting calling for a reduction of 12 to 10 teams and no-one coming up in 2005-06?

Thereafter the two-up, two-down gangway will be replaced by a play-off between top and bottom.

Would it have been better to have stuck more closely to the football template where, for all its baggage in some areas the "beautiful game" at least continues to recognise the importance of shunning the sinecure league - up to a point at least. If history is the best teacher football knows that to remove the uncertainties of promotion and relegation is to take away life-giving excitement.

It may not have been the best of months for Scottish football; in rejecting an officially sponsored bid to allow junior outfits into the venerable national cup competition some clubs were accused of acting out of self interest by SFA President John McBeth, pictured below right.

"The idea for junior clubs in the Scottish Cup was a good one," said McBeth, "but there was a strong feeling that there had been a lack of consultation. The clubs also want to protect their own interests."

Overall, though, football appears to appreciate a free gangway (the bottom of Division Three in Scotland excepted) despite the financial imperatives and changes in ownership based on big-money benefactors such as Roman Abramovich creating inevitable calls for "closed" leagues in some quarters.

And that is the way it should stay according to one expert on sports structures.

Alex Fynn, a sports consultant who has advised the English FA on the setting up of the Premiership, says: "Promotion and relegation is intrinsic because the way we tend to play sport is based on merit. Doing away with the idea of teams going up and down is about self-preservation.

"Life is on the side of the big battalions but within a sporting structure we must try and create opportunities for merit to prevail.

"A (sporting) structure should be for everyone - big and small.

"What must apply is that if you are good enough there has to be a route to rise to the top. Otherwise you will remove the dream factor which contributes so much to spectator interest."

The message from Fynn is that pro sport is heavily driven by parochialism and it doesn't matter how unrealistic a club's ambition might seem in football or rugby their right to try to achieve those aims must be protected.

A former director of top advertising agency Saatchi and Saatchi, Fynn adds: "The reason promotion/relegation is getting a bad press is not the concept but the fact the basic structures of many of our sports are wrong. The premium should be creating opportunities for as many meaningful fixtures as possible in a season. If that means establishing play-offs, fine.

"Also the idea of three up, three down or chasing European spots can also have a big impact in terms of giving sides something to chase to the pleasure of supporters.

"Anathema should be end of season mid-table fixtures. The way current structures can be improved is by a greater distribution of wealth.

"This means more clubs being able to come up with a greater expectation of success because a problem arises when teams come up with limited funds which means they go straight down. "Emphasis should be placed on getting the number of teams in each league absolutely right; that would be a more sophisticated system. Alas, all too often we have an inappropriate number of teams but get that right and everything else has a better chance of falling into place."

Perhaps the best example is to be found in individual sports where the idea of ring-fencing competitors could never be countenanced.

Can you imagine the stagnation if there was no qualifying for Wimbledon, the Open Golf or World Snooker championships, say?

Vacancies to play among the elite prompted only by retirals? I think not.

For me, arguments about ground criteria carry some weight - why should teams pour all their resources into team building while others try to set standards of spectator comfort? - but in most instances there is nothing to beat a promotion decider or a relegation cliff-hanger.

Why should team sports be any different from the individual events and it was worrying to strike upon one promotion/relegation debate as aired on an American soccer website this week.

Arguments were largely based on financial reasons with one fan rejecting the concept of promotion/relegation, saying: "Our league is set up in the only way that will work - you get promoted based on the team's income and not their standing.

"If you can't make money in Division Two how do you expect to do so in Division One?"

While there is much to admire in American sport is this really the way forward?

They say that when the USA sneezes Britain catches a cold but so far our sport has proved more resolute in resisting a drift into Americanisation.

Will that remain the case - or is the era of franchising and the sinecure league on the horizon?

This article was posted on 13-Jun-2005, 11:56 by Hugh Barrow.