Nations adopt Weir for wrong reasons
Welsh and Scottish unions using ex-player’s charity to give Test the veener of respectability
The Doddie Weir Cup is being played for at the Principality Stadium on Saturday. Wales and Scotland are in opposition. A crowd of 60,000 is expected. You might expect that the Doddie Weir Foundation bank account would be benefiting substantially. That was not the case until commonsense finally prevailed. You might be confused as to why Wales and Scotland are playing at all. This encounter is a cherished Six Nations fixture. And you would be right to wonder what on earth it is doing in the November schedule. England v South Africa – fine. But Wales v Scotland?
The reason is that the unions want to fill their coffers, a nakedly money-making exercise. To be fair, it is a professional sport, a business, and making ends meet matters. No money, no jobs, no grass roots. Yet this has become something different, very different.
Rugby often pompously trumpets the fact that it has core values (as if other sports do not), that it is one big family, that it believes in integrity, togetherness, team spirit, in doing the decent thing. When the time came to put those words to the test as being either worthy or portentous tosh, every fan in Cardiff and Edinburgh was able to tell the Welsh and Scottish unions what to do on this issue – make a charitable donation.
Finally, late on last night, after howls of outrage, the unions agreed a deal whereby a joint six-figure sum would be donated from the match proceeds. There will also be volunteers rattling buckets around the stadium in Cardiff. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if a benefactor dropped £50,000 into what, admittedly, would have to be a rather big bucket?
If we are to give the unions some benefit of doubt – and many feel that they do not deserve it – then the origin of all this lay in a well-intentioned PR ploy that backfired. The two countries wanted the game purely for financial purposes and the hook-up with Doddie gave it a veneer of respectability. It’s yet another Test match, outside the international window, but, hey, there is a charitable aspect to it. Roll up and buy our tickets. Many fans may well have felt suckered into forking out only to later find out that the Doddie Weir connection was an add-on, rather than the raison d’etre.
In a perverse way, all the fuss and furore has had a knock-on effect of spreading the word as the ever-popular former Scotland lock himself has been doing since getting his diagnosis of doom some 16 months ago – the death sentence that is motor neurone disease. That is as may be, and there is little doubt that the foundation will benefit from the profile that will be afforded it on Saturday.
But it was always naive to imagine that the general public would see it purely in those terms. The naming of a trophy in Doddie’s honour as a tribute to the fixture would mean only one thing to a spectator buying a ticket – that a chunk of that money, say £25-30 a ticket, would go to the foundation.
There is no obvious reason to a fan as to why this game is being played in November and not in its usual Six Nations slot of February or March. It is a contrivance, an anti-test in many ways, an undermining of what should be a noble, full-bore, once-a-year fixture. The supporters’ two and two together is that this is a charity match staged in the great man’s honour. It is not.
But that is now beside the point. There was outrage at revelations that not a penny of the expected £3 million in gate receipts was being set aside for the foundation but that uproar has provoked a rethink. There are events in and around the match, lunches with Scotland head coach Gregor Townsend, and other fundraising activities. Doddie will be there in his usual larger-than-life attire, a half-red, half-blue tartan suit. The match is being televised on the BBC so the reach will be considerable. More people will be aware of Weir’s predicament and his prognosis-defying efforts to raise awareness of the condition.
It has been a half-cock, ad hoc, pig’s-ear PR exercise. The unions kept it quiet until they were forced to concede what was going on. They ought to have acted with openness and charitable inclinations from the outset. They have managed to turn what ought to have been a celebration into a mud-slinging, rancorous event. The game’s core values should have been upheld earlier. A professional sport does not have to be all about money.
The only one standing in a good light in all this is Weir himself, refusing to get drawn into criticism because so many, including the unions themselves, have been supportive throughout. Doddie, forever tall, an example to us all.