Excessive sanctions creating a divide

SO Spain have lost their appeal with World Rugby and their absence from RWC2023 and a £75,000 fine is confirmed, a decision which is ludicrously harsh and threatens to kill the considerable progress in Spanish rugby stone dead.

A number of their current crop of players, many of whom have lost money in representing Spain and annoyed their employers in the case of French-based players, have announced their retirement in disgust while Spain’s main rugby magazine for the last 14 years has closed down.

The WR decision has been roundly condemned by the International Rugby Players Association but the bottom line is at rugby’s top table nobody really listens to the players.

Spain are being punished because South African Gavin Van den Berg chose to fraudulently change his passport to finesse his residential qualifications after Covid saw him spend more time back in South Africa than regulations allowed. He conned the Spanish Federation, his club and national colleagues and ultimately World Rugby as well because Spain checked with them if he was eligible to select.

Van den Berg played a fleeting cameo role off the bench in a game against the Netherlands that Spain could have won with their Third XV. There was no intention to cheat, nor could you really argue they were reckless, the paperwork seemed ok. His presence had no bearing on Spain’s qualification or not.

Compare and contrast with Wales at RWC in 1999 when they started Shane Howarth and Brett Sinkinson in all four games only to be rumbled a few months later. Their punishment for such cynical cheating? A £10,000 fine and, er, that’s it.

Nothing changes in international rugby. Haves and have nots, tier one and the rest. The big boys get treated totally differently because they make and implement the rules and regs and it continues to stink the place out.