Don’t ring-fence, we want more fairytales – Bracken
KYRAN Bracken hopes football’s latest moves to set up a lucrative new European Super League will not trigger an even more concerted push to ring- fence rugby’s Premiership.
The former England scrum-half insists the magnificent achievement of Exeter Chiefs to go from the Championship to European champions within a decade shows just how vital it is not to close the door on more potential sporting fairytale success stories.
Manchester United and Liverpool recently jumped at the chance to kick-start serious discussions with FIFA over a cross-continent tournament which would see the English footballing giants regularly go head to head with the likes of Barcelona, Real Madrid and Bayern Munich.
With Wall Street bank JP Morgan ready to stump up the £4.6m funding, the most powerful outfits in the game see it as a golden opportunity to rake in more riches – and become even more dominant.
No doubt rugby’s governors will have taken note of the recent developments in the round-ball game.
Some Premiership bosses have claimed stopping the traditional relegation and promotion to the league is inevitable but former Bristol and Saracens star Bracken
remains firmly in the camp of keeping the status quo.
He told TRP: “In most sports there is a pyramid and that works well as long as money trickles down to help smaller clubs improve, progress and come through.
“There is continuous talk and speculation about ring-fencing the Premiership, which would prevent those clubs from coming up unless they meet certain special criteria. I would certainly not be in favour of that.
“If football had that break away it would split the game even more so between the haves and have nots.
“In rugby, we don’t have the financial pulling power for some clubs to think they can do whatever they want. We need the strong and healthy competition to ensure the game grows and thrives nationwide. We have had that competition for some time now and we want to have the fairytales.
“It’s amazing that just ten years ago neither Exeter and Bristol were in the Premiership but now one is European Champions and the other
Challenge Cup winners. It’s a fairytale for them, and if we ring-fence the top league that will not happen again.
“CVC Capital Partners have shown in rugby that there is opportunity to make money in the game in terms of commercial rights but while the franchise system works in America I couldn’t envisage it working in Europe and certainly not England.”
Bracken adds: “We want people to at least have the opportunity to win games and the potential to produce surprises.
“If you just decide certain clubs are in no matter what, they will get all the money and will get all the best players in. So those teams will always win games and trophies.”