Give the World League a chance, international game needs it

THE concept of a World League to lift the flagging fortunes of the global international game has already met with a negative response. This is headin-the-sand stuff given that the plans are at drawing board stage.

The World Rugby initiative deserves a fair hearing, and the naysayers should reflect on a couple of important points.

The first is that the professional club game everywhere is still dependent on revenue from national Unions – and the bulk of that cash is generated by international matches. That means the fortunes of Rugby Union, whether country or club, are entwined.

The second is that, with the exception of the Six Nations, the current model is cracked. In any pro sport which wants to remain healthy that means making repairs at the right time by being open to making judicious changes.

Part of the resistance to a World League may stem from Agustin Pichot, the controversial World Rugby vice-chairman, jumping the gun and raising the spectre of tampering with the Six Nations.

My information is that there is no intention of altering either the Six Nations or the Rugby Championship schedules, and that Bill Beaumont, the World Rugby chairman, made this clear at last week’s gathering of national Union and competition chief executives in Los Angeles.

The World League proposals are instead focussed entirely on the existing July and November international windows. The plan is to give the inter-hemisphere Test matches at those times a competitive league structure, with semi-final play-offs and a final.

That would be an improvement on the current incoherent schedule of “friendlies”, giving much needed shape to the north-south international calendar – as well as improved commercial value to all the national Unions involved.

If that proves to be the case the positives of the proposals far outweigh the negatives.

An objective stocktake of Rugby Union indicates that almost 25 years after the decision to go pro, the sport at international level is losing traction.

In its former Southern Hemisphere bastions of New Zealand, South Africa and Australia – and to a lesser extent in Argentina – it has lost alarming numbers in terms of fans going to live games, and those watching on TV.

The Six Nations may think it is exempt, but the warning signs were there in Paris on Friday night with empty spaces around the Stade de France for the opener between France and Wales. Barely 60,000 fans turned up, leaving 20,000 tickets unsold.

The international game is treading-water from one four-year World Cup cycle to the next.

In the Southern Hemisphere the balance of competitiveness has been upset by the sustained excellence of the All Blacks. This has turned the Rugby Championship into a virtual procession.

Nor is the Six Nations entirely insulated. Italy are the lame-duck of the tournament, and in their twentieth year of participation there is little sign of that changing. Going into this year’s campaign the Italians had won just 12 of their 95 Six Nations games, and are currently on a 17-match losing streak.

The World Cup itself also has significant competitive shortcomings. Since 1995 there has been an IRB/World Rugby mission statement to develop Tier 2 nations so that they can challenge the long-established powers in Tier 1. Yet, in the five World Cups since then the only second-tier nation to qualify for the quarter-finals was Fiji in 2007. This lack of competitive edge has prompted World Rugby to take action.

The Los Angeles meeting ended with Beaumont and World Rugby, “being tasked to explore potential global competition formats” and delivering a commercial structure which will bring increased revenue.

This means offering a major satellite broadcaster – such as Sky – a new annual global rugby competition which operates as a ‘World League’ based on the results of the summer and autumn internationals.

The framework being considered would bring an end to the existing summer tour structure in July and replace it with a similar round-robin Test fixture list to the one currently in place when the Southern Hemisphere teams come to Europe for the autumn series.

Every Test would be for league points. On the drawing board is a 12team first division, which includes all the Six Nations sides, as well as the four Rugby Championship nations, with the addition of two leading Tier 2 nations.

There are semi-final play-offs between the top four, followed by a final. The embryo structure also includes a second division, which will run in tandem, with promotion and relegation to and from the top table every season.

The intention is for everyone to play each other home and away, but if there is not enough time for that to happen, all teams will play each other at least once – with the disadvantage of only playing away reflected in the points system.

The idea could provide a significant revenue increase for Unions. For instance, while England banked £15m from their autumn Test against New Zealand, they had to wait four years for that fixture to come around. In a World League England could play New Zealand at least once a year.

The World League plan leaves the Six Nations and the Rugby Championship as they are, and the aim is not to interfere with Lions tours.

World Rugby has made it clear that other than the running costs of the competition, they are not looking for any financial benefit for itself.

One concept being mooted regarding the Rugby Championship, with its disruptive a long-haul travel requirements, is for the games in the first half of the fixture list to be played as a tournament in one host nation, with the remaining games alternating each season on a home and away basis.

It has also been proposed that the Six Nations introduce promotion and relegation, with the last-placed side playing off against the winners of the Rugby Europe Championship – which last season would have been Italy v Georgia.

It makes sense for any pro sport to have merit based competitions, but so far the idea has met with a lukewarm response. Ben Morel, chief executive of the Six Nations, has said it is not on the agenda. Morel, who spent 21 years with the NBA in the USA, six of them as managing director, has more interest in leveraging Six Nations broadcast rights in the US and the Far East.

However, the reality is that Home Unions are concerned that should the likes of Georgia be successful they could not bring the same volume of broadcast money to the Six Nations table as the Italians.

That revenue picture will change radically if the World League becomes a reality by delivering a format which can give the international game the competitive boost it needs.

“The international game is treading water from one World Cup cycle to the next”