Tew says any decision is a ‘long, long way to go’

NZ RUGBY’S VIEW

The radical World Rugby League proposal that has test players and smaller nations up in arms has no chance of being pushed through in March, according to Kiwi supremo Steve Tew.

The New Zealand Rugby chief executive told a conference call of reporters from Sydney that there remains a long way to go before World Rugby has a proposal that is going to be acceptable to all of its heavyweight members who sit around the table.

The International Rugby Players’ Association has come out in condemnation of what it believed was a proposed new competition that World Rugby was looking to push through in March after landing a significant commercial partner.

But Tew told reporters from Sydney yesterday that World Rugby was in no position to establish any global competition in March, and any conjecture otherwise was wide of the mark.

He made it very clear that while there is support of any move that brings in more revenue in challenging times and adds some vibrancy to the test programme, there was a long, long way to go to find alignment among the nations involved.

And he denied that the end of the current Six Nations broadcasting deal had put a stopwatch on this project.

‘‘There has been nothing agreed to date,’’ Tew said.

‘‘We have been looking at a series of options, and we have been dealing with pluses and minuses of each those options in due course. World Rugby is running a very complex set of stakeholder consultations.

‘‘The meeting we have scheduled in Europe in March is a critical milestone, and until we get to that point there’s not too much more we can say.’’