Money monster
AS THE SAYING GOES, ‘you take the money, you pay the price’. Since rugby became a professional business, a succession of Englishmen have piled cash into the game.
Some, such as Nigel Wray, who is said to have sunk £50 million [$105m] into Saracens so far, have been wealthy benefactors willing to pay through the nose to indulge their love of the game, but a growing number see themselves as entrepreneurs. And entrepreneurs inevitably want a return on their investment.
The power of the English clubs and the desire of the men behind them to start seeing a return on their investment is at the heart of a series of unseemly spats that have broken out recently.
The restlessness of the English clubs was apparent early in the professional era. An ugly club versus country dynamic dominated rugby in England until 2008 when a concord was finally established after a study showed that the top English players were being burnt out two to three times more quickly than New Zealand’s leading players.
The eight-year deal saw the RFU pay the clubs for the use of their players, and put in place mandatory rest periods for England players.
Since then there have been minor outbreaks of fisticuffs between the clubs and the union, but by and large the RFU has been an energetic supporter of the clubs, and an uneasy peace has reigned.
All the while, however, the clubs have been growing in power and wealth, with a four-year television deal with BT Sport, which was signed in 2015 but runs through to the 2020-21 season, giving the clubs around £70m a year just for the rights to televise Premiership games, with extra revenue coming from European matches.
The English clubs, however, are competing for players with the top French clubs, whose five-year ¤296 million deal with Canal Plus is worth about the same amount.
English clubs are now bringing in roughly the same amount of money as the French clubs in sponsorship terms and more in gate receipts, with the average gate for a club match in the Top 14 and Premiership both hovering just north of 13,000 but English clubs are charging more.
Hungry for more money, England’s top clubs have been busy throwing their weight around when it comes to European club competitions, the Six Nations and now the length of the Premiership season.
On European club competitions, the English undoubtedly have a point when they question the value of inclusion of the Welsh clubs [who have reached the Champions Cup semis just three times in the past 20 years], Scottish clubs [once] and particularly the Italian clubs, who have done anything but finish bottom of their pool, usually skewing the result in the first place so that any team lucky enough to be in a pool with the Italians stands a better chance of qualifying as one of the best pool runners-up.
Yet their concern is not about standards but about money – they want more of their clubs involved so they can make more money. They would be perfectly happy for a supposedly pan-European competition to be played solely between the French, English and Irish.
The same sort of self-centred attitude has also informed their approach to the Six Nations. There is undeniably an issue around the timing of the five games in February and March, the length of time international players are away from their clubs, and the knock-on impact upon competitions like the Aviva Premiership.
Yet the way to go about addressing those concerns is not to try to steamroller through a change that helps only yourself, as the RFU did earlier this year at the behest of its clubs.
Just after this year’s Six Nations, Ian Ritchie, the RFU chief executive, leaked his plans to lobby for the removal of one of the two fallow weekends in the tournament so that players could get back to their clubs sooner.
It was a decision that put money before player welfare, and one which would have given a further advantage to England and
English clubs are now bringing in roughly the same amount of money as the French clubs in sponsorship terms and more in gate receipts, with the average gate for a club match in the Top 14 and Premiership both hovering just north of 13,000 but English clubs are charging more.’
France, with their huge player resources, at the expense of the Celts and Italians. Unsurprisingly, the Welsh, Irish, Italians and Scots resented the lack of consultation and forethought, and said so.
“My view is that [contracting the Six Nations from] seven to six weeks is a retrograde step and it’s a dangerous step as far as player welfare is concerned,” said Scottish Rugby Union chief executive Paul Dodson, who insisted that the unions in Ireland, Wales and Italy shared his view. “We’re going to look after our boys, because anybody who witnessed the intense physicality in this last Six Nations and wants to reduce that down to six weeks is taking a huge gamble
with player safety.”
Nor were the dissenting voices just coming from outside England. Former players who understood the implications of the proposed changes were aghast at the attitude towards player welfare. “I think the decisions made around the number of games played rarely seem to have the players’ best interests at heart,” said former England and Lions flanker Lewis Moody. “A lot of those decisions are made from a financial point of view. It seems to be more about how many games can we fit into the season, but international rugby is incredibly demanding, and after an international window the players drop straight back into European rugby, which is on a par with international rugby in its intensity, so for the players to have less time off during that period is a big ask.”
The opposition of the Celtic nations killed the Six Nations proposal stone dead, which meant that the English players never had to grapple seriously with its implications.
Yet as soon as one money-making door shut, another opened – and this one has even more serious ramifications for player safety. Using World Rugby’s new global calendar as cover, the clubs’ organisation, Premiership Rugby, has announced that from 2019 the English club rugby season will go on for an extra month, meaning that the off-season has now been reduced from three to two months.
The idea of a 10-month season starting in September and finishing at the end of June has not gone down well with England’s top players. Indeed, it has gone down so badly that a strike is being seriously considered for the first time since the England players almost refused to play in a dispute over match fees in 2003.
Where the Pro 12 board [covering the Welsh, Irish, Scottish and Italian clubs] immediately agreed to keep the current length of off-season, while the Top 14 would also start a month later in October, the Premiership yet again tried to pull a fast one on its unimpressed players, announcing the chance as a fait accompli via press release.
“The proposal had not been discussed with us,” said the Rugby Players’ Association in a statement. “The RPA has always sought to work collaboratively with Premiership Rugby to address player welfare concerns. It therefore caused significant concern and disappointment to our members to learn of Premiership Rugby’s plans to extend the domestic season via a press release.
“Despite this disappointment, Premiership Rugby were invited to present their proposals in more detail to the RPA players’ board on Wednesday 10 May. However, after due consideration, the board unanimously rejected these proposals in their current form.
“The Premiership season is already longer than comparable contact sports, including Super League, NFL and AFL. Extending an already arduous season from nine months to ten has serious implications for players, given the potential increase to the game, training and psychological loads they face. The physical and mental strain placed on participants of professional contact sport cannot be underestimated.”
RPA chairman Christian Day, who plays in the second row for Northampton, raised the spectre of a strike unless substantial guaranteed safeguards are introduced.
He pointed to the fact that the existing welfare safeguards are already being flouted, with England prop Dan Cole having already played 40 games this season despite a mandatory limit of 32 games. Player trust in the clubs is clearly not high.
“This is not a tweak, it’s a gamechanger,” said Day. “Perhaps most worryingly is the incredible strain these proposals would place on international players. If the Premiership season retains its start date, the addition of a July tour schedule will lead to an 11-month season for these players. This cannot be avoided unless these players start their domestic season later, which brings into question the need for the season extension.
“All players fully recognise the fundamental role Premiership clubs have played in investing in and creating a thriving domestic league in England, but we do not believe the proposals are viable.”
Just how precarious the position of top players is was underlined recently when Montpellier’s billionaire owner Mohed Altrad summarily sacked six players at an end-of-season barbecue.
“There is a horrible reality in professional team sport that players are pieces of meat being put through the grinder,” said Day. “There has to come a point where you say no, this is not going to happen for the next generation. Premiership Rugby have basically said to us ‘go with us, trust us’ but that’s not good enough. We don’t want to go on strike, of course we don’t. But is it an option? Of course it is.”