World Rugby moves to kill off Ipl-style league
The launch of the radical World 12s tournament has been torpedoed, after World Rugby told organisers it would not sanction a new model of the game.
Backed by World Cup-winning coaches Jake White and Steve Hansen, organisers claimed it could bring the best players together in an Indian Premier League-style 12-a-side franchise league, which they said would bring £250million into the sport over five years.
A leading club source says the lack of backing from leagues and unions has left the proposal “dead in the water”.
The first men’s tournament was scheduled to take place over three weeks in August 2022 and chairman Ian Ritchie, the former chief executive of the Rugby Football Union, claimed to have received 10 significant approaches from organisations looking to invest in franchises.
However, despite receiving strong interest from the players, who could stand to make £90,000 each, it has sparked a backlash from clubs and unions, who were unwilling to sanction the release of their prized assets to a rival competition.
“World Rugby has reflected the views of national unions, international and domestic competitions to the group proposing World 12s and confirmed that stakeholders do not wish to explore the concept further at this time,” a World Rugby statement said.
“The priority for the sport is advancing productive discussions regarding the establishment of a welfare-focused, streamlined and harmonious annual international calendar.”
Last night, World 12s organisers insisted they were pressing ahead and believe the world’s best male players will be on board by 2024.
There is no mistaking that the World 12s concept has suffered a severe blow with the lack of sanctioning from World Rugby. The question is whether it is fatal.
Speaking to those involved in leagues and clubs, the time of death has been issued and obituary written. They are determined not to release their players – no matter how keen they might be to pick up a six-figure cheque for three weeks’ work. Without the star players plying their trade in the northern hemisphere, the concept of the World 12s as the Indian Premier League of rugby is null and void.
“It’s dead in the water,” a club source told The Daily Telegraph. “If we want to run a 12s competition pre-season then we would do it. We own the players’ contracts. I just don’t understand how intelligent people could do something like this without going to World Rugby or the leagues in the first instance. It was total hot air.”
Yet World 12s organisers are putting the bravest of faces on these developments a bit like that scene in The Simpsons where Homer is chasing after a barbecued pig which rolls down a hill, into a river and is projected into the stratosphere, shouting “it’s still good, it’s still good!” They now say the inaugural men’s tournament was never going to attract the “192 of the world’s best male players” outlined in the original prospectus. Instead it will be a soft launch, likely made up of players from leagues in New Zealand, Australia, Japan and the United States. Then the plan is full steam ahead to a 2023 women’s competition, which has far fewer barriers, and a men’s tournament in 2024 featuring the cream of the crop.
This remains contentious. Both the inaugural World Club Cup and a revived Nations Championship are supposed to be launched in 2024. Could Maro Itoje or Cheslin Kolbe, say, be realistically expected to play in all three new tournaments on top of club and country commitments?
Certainly with the salaries being mooted around agent circles, many players are desperate to come on board. A nuclear option for the World 12s would be to further up these offers to encourage a breakaway league like Kerry Packer did in cricket all those years ago.
However, for the moment, this is not a route World 12s organisers are exploring. Instead they have just appointed a new chief executive, Rowena Samarasinhe, whose first task was to send a letter to the sport’s stakeholders to reassure them they want to work with rather than against the leagues and unions.
She will hold meetings to explain that the World 12s can complement rather than threaten the existing leagues. Arguably this is what World 12s should have done in the first instance.
But if you are launching a league that is marketing itself as the most exciting thing in rugby what does that do to the value of the Premiership or the Top 14? Never mind a tank being on their lawn, this would be reversing into their house.
The Daily Telegraph understands that CVC capital partners, the private equity firm which has stakes in Premiership Rugby and the United Rugby Championship, is vehemently opposed to the World 12s. Again why would it want another private equity company to muscle in on its turf?
These are questions that have not yet been satisfactorily answered. As first days on the job go, Samarasinhe has had the toughest one imaginable.