Greedy European clubs must be stopped if rugby is to survive
It is more than 20 years since Gordon Gekko told us that greed is good and, while Michael Douglas's Wall Street monster made his pitch at almost exactly the same time as the last major financial global crisis was taking place, plenty of people were still keen to adopt his view as their mantra.

Even now, amid all the talk of recession, many have one eye on the main chance. It is hard not to see those behind some of European rugby's leading clubs as fitting into that category.

Demographics and cultural reasons help explain why a disproportionate amount of rugby's wealth lies in England and France. Their clubs' success in grabbing a huge chunk of that means the Heineken Cup, which gets underway this weekend, has become arguably the sport's most attractive annual tournament.


With All Blacks, Springboks and Wallabies in abundance - no longer just those who have retired from Test rugby either, as demonstrated by Dan Carter's recruitment to Perpignan - the standard of rugby is higher than in the Six Nations Championship. League of Nations XVs training together every day for months on end are inevitably better than national sides who have minimal preparation time.

Little wonder that English and French club owners believe themselves to be the rugby equivalent of football's power-brokers in the English Premier League and Spain's La Liga.

Yet, in doing so, they miss a vital point. Unlike football, rugby is nowhere close to being truly global. If the sport does not take action to extend its reach then it will be a case of ever-decreasing circles in terms of interest.

Allowing resources to be concentrated on English and French clubs is the greatest danger currently facing the sport


Plenty of professional sports have, in the past, experienced brief, faddish, periods of popularity only for supporter interest to drop off when it becomes clear there is a sameness to what is on offer.

Professional rugby has already tasted that. Not so long ago, Super 12 and the Tri-Nations Championship were among sport's most compelling competitions. People who would never otherwise have contemplated such poor taste were attaching satellite dishes to their houses and, God forbid, setting alarms for 6.30am on a Saturday to catch the latest matches.

Yet I cannot remember being asked once this year whether I had seen a Super 14 or Tri-Nations match, so used are we to seeing the All Blacks and Springboks in action.

I am, meanwhile, struggling to get excited about the Autumn Test Series. The Heineken Cup has much more appeal, but even then this weekend's kick-off for the Scottish sides hardly carries the lure of the exotic.

Edinburgh v Leinster is among this weekend's most attractive matches, but they met just a few weeks ago in the Magners League, as well as at the same stage in this tournament last year. As for Glasgow Warriors' weekend journey to Newport, the prospect of a repeat of their dogged Magners League opener is hardly one that would have had supporters reaching for the laptop to check on cheap flights.

Rugby's revenues must be properly disseminated so that, in time, Heineken Cup trips to the Balkans, to Russia, to Scandinavia, to the Iberian Peninsula and to the Low Countries become part of the mix.

World Cup performances have suggested that that reality need not be too far away if the International Rugby Board (IRB) continues, as it has been doing since the advent of professionalism, to try to develop the sport across the world.

Consequently, allowing all resources to be concentrated on English and French clubs - who are willing to threaten the importance of Test rugby by withholding players from national gatherings - is the greatest danger currently facing the sport.

Hard, then, not to read statements on behalf of an anonymous group under the banner "Putting Rugby First" - a matter discussed previously in this column - as propaganda by those clubs.

The IRB is far from perfect and must come up with a transparent system of letting successful rugby nations, like Argentina, have the same voting power as faltering traditional powers like Scotland.

However, while some ideals championed by "Putting Rugby First" seem superficially worthy, the tone is more that of mischief-makers seeking, through persistence, to undermine the one organisation currently working on behalf of the sport's global development.

So, as we drool in anticipation of the Heineken Cup kick-off this weekend, let's not get carried away. Attendances will mostly compare with mid-level in English football's Championship while very few rugby clubs have yet managed to find a way of breaking even.

Just as in the financial markets, these are dangerous times for a sport that is on a tilting point. It is time to identify the greedy people and the damage they are recklessly willing to do in order to make short-term gains for themselves.

This article was posted on 9-Oct-2008, 07:36 by Hugh Barrow.