Brand can play key global role

‘‘... they should remember that those islands ... have contributed ... to the brand of fast, open, winning rugby championed by the world’s best team.’’

You may have noticed an advertisement doing the rounds that compares an international telecommunications company’s offerings to the All Blacks. It says having a fast, global network without the firm’s input would be like having world rugby without New Zealand.

That confirms the All Blacks are a truly global brand; it also suggests that without the silver fern, the game as a marketable product around the globe would lose much of its golden lustre.

It’s time to test the worth of that premise. World Rugby has proposed a global league featuring 12 countries. The usual suspects are there: the current Six Nations teams would be joined by those competing in the Rugby Championship. Also lining up would be Japan and the United States.

There is the potential for a great deal of money to be made, particularly because broadcasters appear to be keen on the inclusion of lucrative markets such as Japan and the US.

That’s bad news for the Pacific Islands, and particularly Fiji, who are currently ranked ninth in the world, four places ahead of the Americans. Italy are included as well, despite being ranked only 15th.

Making all of this worse is that, under the proposal, those 12 would be locked in for a dozen years, leaving others to battle away in potential second-tier contests, with no chance of joining this elite gated community.

That’s wrong. It’s condemning a generation of players and administrators to remaining on the sidelines while the established nations and their hand-picked mates dominate the possession of prestige, power and improvement of performance.

It is ensuring that the likes of not only Fiji, Tonga and Samoa, but also Georgia, Romania and others remain capable of the occasional upset but not capable enough to upset the balance of power, which is now firmly weighted towards the Northern Hemisphere.

It appears, also, that this plan was hatched without the meaningful input of those nations, or of the players who would play an obviously important role in its delivery.

That is short-sighted, possibly even arrogant. It has certainly left many offside with the proposal and World Rugby.

New Zealand, among many others, has concerns.

This country’s rugby leaders, including All Blacks coach Steve Hansen, skipper Kieran Read and players’ boss Rob Nichol, are worried about the impact on player welfare, the undermining of the World Cup, and the possible collapse of Pacific Islands rugby.

In their protestations they should remember that those islands and their many fine sporting exports have contributed a great deal, not only to the global rise of the sport itself, but more particularly to the brand of fast, open, winning rugby championed by the world’s best team.

And they should be prepared to use the heft of that brand in testing the limits of World Rugby’s power and its defence of such a defective proposal.

We are not advocating anything as dramatic as a boycott, more a reminder to those rugby powerbrokers and the broadcasters who will bankroll any world league that without the All Blacks there is no world rugby.

Without the silver fern there is no golden egg.