Brian Moore: a clear pathway is needed for future of European rugby

By extension the Six Nations, which effectively keeps the others afloat, would

not exist in its current form. However you carve up European rugby you have

to do it with that historic fact in mind. You can bleat about what should

be, but you have to deal with what is.

The regional clubs of Wales are the prime example of what happens when you

leave it to market forces, but dabble a little bit. They are neither one

thing nor the other; neither truly independent bodies nor fully supported

franchises.

This cannot go on. For the sake of Welsh rugby the Welsh Rugby Union (WRU) has

to take a short-term hit and reimburse the regional investors and then get

hold of the nation’s game and order it properly.

If there was sufficient interest and cash for wealthy backers to underwrite

the regions they would have emerged by now. The fact is that the future

holds out only the prospect of piecemeal investment from consortia or the

occasional rich financier and this is no basis on which to found the

development and management of talent which, against the odds, continues to

emerge.

Once the top end of the Welsh game is stable the WRU can and should set about

ensuring that enough money is fed down to the tiers below and that junior

clubs are able to thrive. That way the feeder system will be healthy and

Welsh rugby can move on without perpetual discord and crisis. Those that are

against this have to come up with a credible alternative and one that will

last the next few decades not merely the next five years.

As for English and French rugby, there is nothing more than a theoretical

possibility that their unions could do this given the huge sums involved and

the fact that unlike Wales they have not already broken the old club

allegiances.

The inbuilt imbalance that will always be there when they compete against

union-backed provinces/clubs would be better addressed by them pushing for

not a few cup matches spread over the season but a restricted number of

fully fledged European leagues as well as a Euro-cup tournament. This would

mean success would require playing the best players throughout, better

standards of rugby and a valuable set of European-wide sports rights.

A Euro cup and league would accommodate the current two deep-pocketed

broadcasters and leave room for any that emerge. At the moment the carve up

does not give room for both Sky and BT to have valued, profile rights and as

this is not football with enough quality rights to go round that problem has

to be addressed.

If it is not you are left with a disordered market that sees BT using the

potentially unwelcome ruse of sponsoring the shirts of several

provinces/clubs as a way of not only increasing visibility but indirectly

exerting influence politically. No admission of the latter will come from BT

but even the suggestion of influence is not good.

In future games that they may air, how long before there are comments made

about the length of time their logo appears in replays or that a particular

commentator or pundit has been partial? In games shown by their competitors

how soon before directors and broadcasters are told to take the

diametrically opposite approach?

If you think this fanciful you are not sufficiently sceptical about how the

commercial world works. The possibility of this is, perhaps, remote, but why

would you even want to allow it in the first place?

Whatever Santa brings European rugby there is one certainty – a lot of people

are not going to be happy.

Article source: http://www.therugbyobserver.co.uk/2013/12/04/sport-Rugby-salvage-late-point-91482.html

Brian Moore: a clear pathway is needed for future of European rugby