Neither Beaumont nor Pichot are right
Everyone knows the problem with elections: candidates come up with good ideas, make promises, and then, once they’ve got the power, too often don’t deliver.
It’s even trickier when the candidate is an incumbent, because then there’s a track record to examine, and the really awkward question is, ‘You’ve been in power for a while, so why haven’t you done this by now?’
Don’t worry; I’m not venturing into politics in the widest sense, just rugby politics with Sir Bill Beaumont up against Agustin Pichot for the job of chairman of World Rugby.
Like all politicians, Beaumont, along with his candidate for vice-chairman, Bernard Laporte, has a manifesto. The preface to their pledges says that World Rugby ‘needs to be fit for purpose and seen as world leading’ and that they ‘need to define what the purpose and mission of World Rugby is’. This comes into the category of stating the bleedin’ obvious, so why on earth hasn’t Beaumont done this in his four years in office?
There is a proposal for a wide-ranging governance review of the game, statements about the need for a global calendar, the need to make the game more attractive, a financial review and, of course, some platitudes about player welfare. In other words, the same old motherhood and apple pie stuff churned out again. Oh, I forgot, a bit about how rugby can no longer be all about the old guard, coming from two men who epitomise exactly that!
Beaumont’s rival, Pichot, has age on his side although as vice-chairman for the past four years he too has a case to answer. He is damaged in the eyes of many as he was one of the driving forces behind the iniquitous Nations Championship proposal, one that would drive even more Test rugby at the expense of the elite club game.
It’s hard to put a finger on what exactly Pichot stands for other than the fact that he’s not Beaumont, and he is clearly hoping that there is an appetite for change, even if the details are vague.
The overwhelming message I take from both candidates is that rugby would be in a much better state if neither of them got the job, and World Rugby’s influence was eroded.
These are men who don’t really give a fig about the club game, and therefore about diehard rugby fans – they live in a Test-centric world.
Just have a look at the way that the ballot is being conducted. It’s done in secret by email with the top nations having three votes while the smaller ones have one each. In other words, the cards are stacked in favour of the old guard, and it stinks.
Add in a convicted killer, the Fiji Union’s chairman Francis Kean, being forced to stand down because of allegations of homophobia and you really couldn’t make it up.
The bottom line is that this is a thoroughly dispiriting business, all about retired players trying to garner or retain power, and my gut reaction is a plague on both their houses – if we can still use that phrase in these Covid-19 days!
This election is a shabby business, all about politics and promises, but whoever gets the top job, little will change, and rugby will be the poorer.
In last week’s TRP it was reported that a move to make a reduction in next season’s salary cap had been blocked by Bath, Bristol, and Exeter. I doubt this is the end of the story, as common sense will prevail in the end – the groundswell is for a reset to where income and expenditure will have at least a passing relationship to each other.
As always with Premiership Rugby, the details of what was actually proposed and why some clubs seemingly didn’t like it, are scant, but on the face of it opposition to the proposal beggars belief.
One would have thought that all of the clubs would want to do whatever it takes to ensure there’s a viable league at the end of all this – estimates of how much a club makes from a home game range from £300k upwards, so losing any matches would be a damaging business.
Costs, predominantly salaries, have raced ahead of income in recent years, and, sadly, Covid-19 might just have done the English game a big favour. The millionaire owners were probably never going so make a major re-adjustment of their own accord, so if this crisis forces them to face reality, and persuades them to consider the bigger picture, then some good will have come from it.
“Whoever gets the top job, little will change, and rugby will be the poorer”