German expansion stuck at a crossroads as players threaten to go on strike
Row over funding could lead to first ever boycott of international match, reports Daniel Schofield
Angela Merkel is not the only German struggling to keep the peace between discordant factions. Yesterday, the German rugby union team went on strike in a dispute with Deutscher Rugbyverband, the German union, and say they will refuse to play in their match against Chile on Saturday. This in turn stems from a disagreement between the DRV and Dr Hans-peter Wild, its billionaire benefactor.
In terms of people to avoid falling out with, Wild, the heir to the Capri Sun fortune and new owner of Stade Francais, should rank pretty high. Wild has cut his funding to the union, and with it the full-time programme he had installed six months previously, threatening Germany’s status as the rising force within European rugby. Understandably, the players are less than pleased with this development. “All of the players are proud to represent Germany,” Sean Armstrong, the captain, said in a statement. “However, under the current conditions feel they need to speak up. As a group, we have decided to make ourselves unavailable for Saturday’s forthcoming game. We demand that the union begin to take our situation seriously and affect changes which ensure that 15s rugby has a future in this country. In order to do this, groundbreaking changes will need to occur within the union.”
There is no previous precedent for an international match being called off because of a strike. There have been plenty of threats, including Samoa before their match against England three years ago and England nearly calling off their game against Argentina in a row over pay in 2000, but all have been resolved in time to allow the games to go ahead. Chances are that this will also be the case on Saturday, even if both sides seem to be digging their heels in.
Caught in the crossfire of all this is Mouritz Botha, the former Saracens and England second row, who was appointed defence coach this summer. He had been planning out his perfect training session, installing a German flavour of the Saracens’ Wolf Pack, before yesterday only to find that he had no players to coach.
As befitting someone who went from playing part-time for Bedford Athletic while earning a living carpet-cleaning and asbestosstripping to earning 11 caps for England, Botha is relentlessly optimistic. Qualification for the World Cup is still in their hands. Just about. In the Rugby Europe Championship, the top team (currently Romania) automatically qualify with the runners-up (currently Spain) going into the repechage. After winning their first two games, against Romania and Belgium, Germany are fourth, five points behind Spain and seven behind Romania with four games to play.
“It will be tough, very tough, but I think we are on an upward curve,” Botha said. “I watched one of their games against Russia before I joined and I think they lost 55-25. Having analysed the game, I am pretty confident that, if we play them again, we can beat them.”
Botha has a secondary role as a scout for German talent residing within the English leagues. There is a surprisingly high population of German-qualified players owing to parents being stationed at army bases there. Several are interested in coming on board but losing their English-qualified status, which entitles clubs to money from the Rugby Football Union, represents a major stumbling block. Lee Dickson, the former England scrum-half, has also spoken to Botha but he would need to go down the route of playing for the Germans sevens side to become eligible. Toby Flood has also discussed this possibility.
The hopes of persuading such high-profile players to come aboard and of World Cup qualification would depend on Wild renewing his financial commitment to Germany rugby. Although World Rugby invests significant sums in setting up high-performance units within tier-two countries, there is still a need for a sugar daddy to fund a full-time programme. A lot of Georgia’s progress is tied to the backing of Bidzina Ivanishvili, their billionaire former Prime Minister.
Wild has already invested €30 million over the past decade, leading to the formation of the Wild Rugby Academy, who compete under the banner of Heidelberg RK in the European Continental Shield, the level below the Challenge Cup. The implementation of a full-time programme has resulted in huge progress, according to head coach Kobus Potgieter. He said: “It has changed the landscape. It has definitely put us miles ahead of where we were. When we started the programme we used to get our players on a Thursday, you’d try to fit in one training session and then on Saturday you played. If we stop training full-time we will definitely go backwards and quickly.”
Should Wild get back on board, then Potgieter is convinced that forward progress can be resumed. There have been preliminary talks about introducing a German team into the Pro 14 competition. Entry to the Six Nations is also being eyed. What makes Germany’s case more compelling than, say, Georgia is the huge commercial market. “There are 82 million reasons,” Potgieter said. “It is a massive market but the only way you can get people to buy into it is if you have a product to sell them.”