NZ players boss takes issue with Tew’s World League claims

Players boss Rob Nichol has refuted claims from New Zealand Rugby chief executive Steve Tew that the controversial World Rugby plan for a global league was only 24 hours old when it hit the public arena earlier this week.

And the Kiwi players’ powerbroker has described World Rugby as being in ‘‘backtrack’’ mode over their proposed world league concept, which is copping a major public backlash, particularly over its unrealistic demands on players, game integrity issues and shutout of the Pacific Islands nations.

Nichol, CEO of the New Zealand Rugby Players’ Association and a key board member with the international body, sought to clarify the timeline after Tew claimed the contentious proposal to formalise test rugby into a world league had only just been formulated.

‘‘We’ve been working on a number of different concepts, and the one that’s been discussed most recently was literally 24 hours old, and had some flaws in it which we had pointed out and were going to be worked through,’’ Tew told reporters on Friday.

Tew also made a reference to the unhelpful nature of this proposal being put into the public arena, as it had by the international players’ group, led by All Blacks skipper Kieran Read, speaking out via worldwide media release.

Asked how far away rugby was to finding a compromise on this concept, Tew said: ‘‘We’re probably further away today than we were 48 hours ago simply because we’ve ended up with debate in the public arena that’s not completely informed.’’

But Nichol, who has a strong working relationship with the NZ Rugby boss, took issue with Tew’s time-frame and said the players had ‘‘absolutely not jumped the gun’’ by airing their concerns as they had.

Nichol, who is at the heart of the players’ move to have their voice heard over the restructuring of the tier-one test programme, said Tew was being ‘‘disingenuous’’ and not respectful of the players by suggesting the mooted global league plan was a new thing.

‘‘This proposal with 12 teams, split 6 and 6, has been around for several months. It was publicly reported prior to the November meetings,’’ he said. ‘‘It has been around for a significant amount of time and has been the only option talked about with international players.’’

Nichol said the first time the proposal in its current guise came to the players’ attention had been last October via social media comments by World Rugby vicechairman Agustin Pichot and others, and then more formally via a power-point presentation from the global body at the international players’ executive conference in Dublin in November.

Just weeks later the same presentation was made to the players in Monaco, and on both occasions the feedback given was almost identical to what had come out last Thursday.

The players were then told World Rugby had formulated a group to iron out the concept which included the CEOs of the Six Nations and Rugby Championship countries, as well as the bosses from Fiji, Japan and the international players group.

Their interest was then piqued when a meeting was convened in Los Angeles in January that included the CEOs from the Six Nations, Lions and Sanzaar countries, but not Fiji, Japan or the international players.

The players were then told there it was not appropriate to have them present because of sensitive commercial issues.

‘‘At that point we said if we’re doing this in partnership you can’t pick and choose

‘‘We’ve still got material issues with this proposed format . . . ’’ Rob Nichol, above

when you involve the players,’’ said Nichol. ‘‘We’ve still got material issues with this proposed format, we keep putting them on the table, yet we haven’t seen any other options presented.’’

Nichol said the chairman and CEO of the international players’ body then met with top World Rugby officials in the middle of last week when it was conveyed that ‘‘things have moved quickly, and they were looking to finalise this proposal in mid-March’’.

On the subject of player issues, they were told that the funds being generated would help address those. It was also confirmed then that promotion-relegation was out the door because of vehement objections from some Six Nations countries.

‘‘This format is not 24 hours old, it’s a good six months old,’’ said Nichol. ‘‘In fact the first time this format was talked about was in 2007 in Woking after the World Cup when we had a conference and this model was put on the whiteboard.’’

Nichol said the players decided to speak out because they considered it their only avenue and because their concerns were simply not being listened to.

‘‘We can see they’re looking to backtrack now,’’ he added. ‘‘To be honest if I was in their situation, which I wouldn’t be, that’s what I’d be doing.

‘‘The reason I’d be backtracking is because we’ve got to take a few steps back and see 1) whether this tournament is even feasible, and when you think about the current proposal, it’s not, and 2) is there a way we can get the process back on track?

‘‘If they want that they’re going to have to work out how to engage with the players in a more respectful manner.’’

Nichol said the ball was now in World Rugby’s court.

‘‘We’ll get a little bit of time. It would have shocked them that the players have come out so strongly, that they genuinely care about their welfare and integrity of the game. We’ll see how they respond.’’

Nichol, meanwhile, downplayed a proposed boycott of the World Cup by Pacific Island nations that had come from a UKbased support group. ‘‘Pacific Rugby

Players, which is the official players’ association, are absolutely not making that threat. Their players are all working as hard as they can to make their squads and perform well in Japan.’’