SARRIES WIN, BUT THERE’S MORE BAD NEWS
RUGBY is still amateur. Supreme professionalism on the field is not being matched in the corridors of power. The handling of the Saracens salary cap scandal proves that the governance of the sport is an utter shambles.
Frankly, it is embarrassing. They are making it up as they go along. There is no sign of effective, neutral leadership and a commitment to transparency in the interests of preserving even a scrap of credibility.
While men with agendas scheme behind closed doors, the reputation of the game is being dragged through the dirt.
Premiership Rugby poked a wary head above the parapet on Saturday night to announce what was already known, that Saracens would be relegated at the end of this season as a result of their cap breaches in three previous seasons.
The explanation? There wasn’t one. All they offered was: ‘ This action follows the conclusion of dialogue between Premiership Rugby and Saracens.’
So the secrecy goes on, 10 weeks after PRL announced the initial judgment against the disgraced champion club — a deduction of 35 league points and a £5.3million fine — and then declared that the saga had ‘reached a conclusion’. Really? No it hasn’t, not even now, in late January, following a long spell of official silence.
There are still so many questions about how those who run the elite English division as a shady private cabal concocted this verdict. Saracens were guilty of systematic cheating by operating far beyond the limits of the cap. They deserved to be punished severely. But the broader English rugby community — those who participate in it, sponsor it, publicise it and follow it — deserve to understand what exactly has gone on.
Pigs might fly. A deal has been done and there doesn’t appear to be much appetite to hold it up to close scrutiny. Another judicial carve-up is likely to go unchecked as PRL maintain that their regulations do not permit publication of the full judgment — or presumably any details of what was said and agreed in last Tuesday’s board meeting.
Sources have indicated that Saracens were presented with an ultimatum — cut £2m from their playing budget with immediate effect, hand back their trophies and open their books up to forensic accountants. The word is that they preferred to accept automatic relegation rather than go down that road of warts-and-all discomfort. That leads to obvious conclusions, of course.
While Saracens and their squad of A-listers work out where to go from here, the outside impression is of a sport stuck in an administrative black hole, unable to grasp the opportunities for growth and expansion as it skulks around in dark corners and in the dark ages. Amateurism still reigns. So much of the game has changed beyond all recognition since players started being paid in the mid-1990s, but there has been no such organisational transformation. There is plenty of interest in the game. Interest payments on debts. Self- interest. Conflicts of interest. Ian Ritchie ( left) stood down as chief executive of the RFU in 2017 and within months he had been installed as chairman of PRL, to use what he knew to tackle club v country debates and disputes from the other side of the fence.
Then Mark McCafferty concluded his era of trying to run the entire sport in the interests of the leading English clubs, as PRL chief executive, to take up a role with CVC, the private equity firm to whom he had just overseen the sale of commercial rights.
Amateurish governance, greed and blinkered thinking are not confined to the club game. Last year, World Rugby vice-president Agustin Pichot saw his Nations League vision shattered by a refusal on the part of certain home unions to contemplate the threat of relegation from the Six Nations, a glorious annual event but also a cosy club.
The rise of Georgia has been stunted by the refusal of Europe’s established countries to consider opening up their competition.
The handling of this Saracens controversy is another example of rugby’s authorities cooking up a plan which broadly protects the status quo and its hush-hush instincts. A similarly shady deal was done in San Francisco in 2017, when key ‘stakeholders’ quietly mapped out the future of the sport, without thinking it necessary to ensure all parties were privy to those plans.
Where does this leave the
Premiership? First of all, the season will now lack the familiar frisson of jeopardy. Struggling clubs such as Leicester, Wasps and London Irish know that, however many times they lose, they will not be going down to the Championship. So many matches will lack the raw tension and intensity associated with the struggle for survival.
Saracens, meanwhile, can rest and rotate their vast England contingent at will. No amount of victories can save them. They must fulfil their fixtures but it remains to be seen if they have the professionalism to give body and soul to every game as they would have done. A commitment dip would be a human-nature reaction and could affect the integrity of the competition.
Away from the pitch, the credibility of the league and the game as a whole has been savaged. This mess should have been sorted out before the season belatedly began. New PRL chief executive Darren Childs has stayed out of harm’s way while the storm has raged around him and his beleaguered organisation.
It has been a drawn-out farce and it is not over yet.
Saracens are guilty and are being punished accordingly. Others are guilty of extreme negligence — perhaps more — and are getting away with it.