Rugby bids for No 1 spot

ENGLAND’S national rugby union and football teams play at home within 24 hours this week, making it an ideal opportunity to gauge whether RFU chief executive Steve Brown has any chance of achieving his goal of making union the country’s ‘strongest sport’ in the next five years.

Football is far bigger at club level, but the battle is closer on the international stage. England’s footballers play world champions Germany at Wembley on Friday, with an expected capacity crowd of 88,000 paying up to £65 for tickets. The rugby team take on Argentina a day later in front of 80,000, with a top general-sale price of £95.

And there will a lot more ballyhoo and expense when England entertain world champions New Zealand in a year’s time. Hospitality prices for the All Blacks game in Twickenham’s new East Stand range from £649 to a whopping £1,345. THE brown tourist road signs showing the way to St George’s Park feature a football and a bed, signifying that there is a Hilton hotel at the football centre. But with the FA likely to continue banning the public from its 228 rooms when England are staying there, the bed symbol will surely have to go. CHELSEA’S new sales pitch to sponsors reveals the club are targeting a global fanbase of 1 billion by 2025. That ambitious figure is put into perspective by a Manchester United survey in 2012, which claimed the club have 659 million followers.