Atrocious state of morality in game
There is something fundamentally wrong with the fact the Rugby Football Union is about to invest around $ 800 million in making English rugby stronger when England are about to play Samoa, a union on the verge of bankruptcy.
Rugby’s talk of growing the game, of doing more to create genuine World Cup contenders, appears an empty promise.
Maybe there is a desire among the leading nations to help develop the second tier but only if they don’t have to put a hand in their own pocket or give up a single cent of any of potential earnings.
What is likely to happen at Twickenham next month is staggering — morally atrocious — and yet will not linger long in the thinking of any executives.
Rarely has there been a more stark example of the financial inequality that is strangling rugby’s ability to truly become a global sport.
Rarely have things been so rotten and unfair, but what else to think when a sold out Twickenham is estimated to deliver profit of around $ 12 million for the RFU and none of that is destined for Samoa.
From that windfall England will be able to pay their players a match fee of close to $ 40,000, with the RFU on track to post revenue of around $ 200m.
Samoa, in contrast, have debts of around $ 1.7m and will be paying their players a match fee of about $ 1000 each and can’t be sure they will be solvent by the end of November.
The Samoan Rugby Union has written to the RFU, pleading for a $ 300,000 share of the match profits to help them cover some of their November tour costs.
“Our fate is dictated by our situation and we are close to insolvency,” Samoan Rugby Union chief executive Vincent Fepuleai has
We don’t want to go down the road where there is no Samoan national team. Our people have a lot of passion. This must not happen. Samoan Rugby Union chief executive Vincent Fepuleai
been quoted as saying.
“Without desperate support from our government, we would have been a closed shop a long time ago. We have had debts of almost £ 1m and we are still making a loss. It’s a huge struggle. I wouldn’t like to speak about the worst- case scenario. We don’t want to go down the road where there is no Samoan national team because our people have a lot of passion. This must not happen.”
The RFU will inevitably talk about setting an unwelcome precedent if they pay out and will highlight the fact they have invested millions of dollars in rebuilding Twickenham.
Their argument will be valid but they also have to consider why they are about to invest $ 800m in their development over the next four years.
They want to be the world’s premier rugby force. But maybe they will be the world’s only rugby force if they and all the other tier one nations don’t agree to some kind of change in the game’s financial distribution.
England are by no means alone in their stance. Every other tier one nation is just as self- interested and just as reluctant to change the system for the greater good.
The existing financial setup is a reciprocal one where the host nation pays the in- bound costs of the team they are playing.
It works for the tier one unions as they tend to have an equal amount of home and away games in a calendar year.
But the tier two nations such as Samoa rarely host any games against tier one nations.
The reciprocal thing doesn’t work for them, which is why they have their hand out, unquestionably bemused that England can’t see that the world they want to conquer may not have Samoa in it.