‘RUGBY FACING RUIN’ – WHY GAME’S WORLD BOSS SPOKE OUT AND WHAT IT MEANS FOR WALES
WORLD Rugby vice-chairman Agustin Pichot believes international rugby is facing ‘ruin’ and the current financial model needs fixing.
The former Argentina scrum-half has called for a new 10-year blueprint for the game ahead of next year’s World Cup in Japan.
World Rugby revealed 18 months ago a deal agreed in San Francisco was intended to give clarity to the global rugby calendar until 2032.
But instead of pressing ahead with the proposals, new talks on how to make international rugby more viable will now take place in Sydney later this month.
Pichot is keen to amalgamate June and November Tests into one block to make games more meaningful.
He said: “If you ask me as a businessman, the business side of it is not working. If you ask me as the playing side, it’s not working. Is the international game under threat?
“I think it is. Look at the balance sheets of some nations and you can see exactly where we stand.
“By the 2019 World Cup we need to have a blueprint for the next 10 years.
“On a scale of one to 10, I think we’re four out of 10 now [in terms of finding a solution] but before we were not even on the chart.
“We need to push that needle from four to at least six or seven.
“I’m not going to be an accomplice to rugby’s ruin.”
The game’s power-brokers are not on the same song-sheet and the Gallagher Premiership club owners are currently in discussions over backing for the English top-flight after turning down an offer of £275million for 51 per cent of the league and have announced that, with the Test window moved to July, future seasons will stretch into June.
Pichot added: “At the end of the day we wanted that shift [of the Test window to July] to give international players a rest if they were playing too many games.
“That for us is really the most important thing. My view is that players cannot carry on playing as they are now.
“You cannot have them playing 30-odd competitive club and international games just because you want bums on seats.”
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AGUSTIN Pichot famously responded to his then club Richmond going bust 20 years ago by writing out a cheque for £300 to pay for the team bus taking them to their match the next day. The fixture went ahead. Problem solved. Well, Richmond still went into administration, but at least the players got to go to the game that day.
If only Pichot could fix rugby’s difficulties that easily.
He has argued that rugby will heading for ruin without a new financial model.
We take a look at the key issues behind his warning...
WHY IS PICHOT SPEAKING OUT?
In his capacity as World Rugby vicechairman, the former Argentina captain has warned that the international game is under threat unless the sport takes urgent action over the next 12 months.
Pichot says the game’s financial model is not working and he wants a new blueprint hammered out pretty sharpish.
He didn’t carry a placard proclaiming ‘the end of the world is nigh’, but in rugby terms he may as well have, suggesting the international game is staring into the abyss.
“I’m not going to be an accomplice to rugby’s ruin,” he made clear.
His answer is a global season that would see the amalgamation of June and November Test windows into one block to make games more meaningful.
Will everyone buy it without a bitter row? Don’t bank on it.
SOUTHERN DISCOMFORT
Some whose rugby diet is built solely around heading to the Principality Stadium to watch Wales play a few times a year might wonder what the fuss is about.
A few pints of Brains before kickoff, close your eyes while drinking in the anthems and then sit back and watch the action in a crowded stadium before heading home. What’s the big deal?
Well, the big deal is it’s not like that everywhere.
Australia last weekend faced South Africa at the Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane in front of just 27,849 spectators, with 24,651 empty seats.
Two World Cup winners of the past 20 years playing in front of a crowd that Brighton and Hove Albion football club would be disappointed with.
It screamed out that the game in the southern hemisphere has a problem, and a pretty severe one at that.
Super Rugby is losing its popularity in Australia, with one commentator in the Sydney Morning Herald recently contending that fans are being put off by the confusing format and many games being beamed on TV in the middle of the night.
And the Rugby Championship has become as predictable as night following day, with New Zealand masters of all they survey.
Once, Australia and the All Blacks drew a world record crowd of 109,874 to the Olympic Stadium in Sydney.
People spoke of the “magic of the Bledisloe Cup” and lauded the quality of the rugby dished up that day in 2000.
They saw a genuine contest. But the magic is waning. Australia haven’t won a Bledisloe Cup series against New Zealand since 2002 and many of their fans are starting to tire of all the beatings.
In 2017 just 54,000 watched the two nations play in Australia, the lowest crowd for a Bledisloe Test in Sydney in the professional era.
The All Blacks have won every Rugby Championship outside World Cup years since 2009. Their excellence is stupendous to the point where others can’t live with it, not even the once-mighty South Africa.
The Springboks versus New Zealand used to be the pinnacle of the sport, the unofficial world championship. Zinzan Brooke called it the “ultimate rugby rivalry” and New Zealand didn’t win a series there until 1996.
But in 2017 they won 57-0 in Albany.
Do South Africa and Australia still believe the All Blacks are beatable? It seems increasingly doubtful.
Suspense is no longer part of the plot, and every sport needs suspense. No-contests have only so much appeal.
When New Zealand play in the Rugby Championship it has become like watching the Mousetrap and knowing the policeman did it (which he did, so you’re wasting your time going to see it if you already haven’t).
And, all the while, players in the south are leaving for the get-richquickly playing fields of the northern hemisphere to swell their bank balances.
Wasps fly-half Lima Sopoaga, a 16-cap New Zealander, reckoned only this week the All Black jersey was no longer enough to stem the tide of players departing the country.
Even New Zealand rugby is reportedly running at an operating loss, despite the seemingly endless onpitch successes.
Pichot has seen all this unfold and presumably that is why he is speaking out.
CASH IN THE NORTH
Gold-standard rugby is still largely served up in the south, through New Zealand.
But the cash is elsewhere. Somehow, World Rugby need to restore the magic of the Test game to help reinvigorate the sport’s appeal and viability below the equator.
A global season might bring fewer Tests, but, for some, less would be more.
They believe that broadcasters would pay extra for something with a relative scarcity value, and interest would pick up.
It is a delicate balancing act because the international game is still a key driver of the sport and cutting back the number of matches being played wouldn’t be without risk if that is the plan.
Can a newly-structured rugby calendar be drawn up to suit the Test game and the powerful club owners in the north?
We’ll see.
THE PLAYER DRAIN
But the player drain is going to be tough to sort out.
Sportsmen have short careers and
the best tend to migrate to where they can best rewarded. It happens in other sports, with Mo Salah presumably not residing in Liverpool these days because he wants to learn more about the Royal Albert Dock, the Cavern Club and the history of The Beatles.
It is not astrophysics to appreciate that when a sport is professional, those who play it will want to cash in to the max.
PLAYER WELFARE
Pichot talks about player welfare and the need to look after those who do all the scrummaging, jumping, passing, kicking and running, but best of luck with that.
Premiership club owners in England are in negotiations to secure multi-million pound support for their league, having turned down an offer of £275 million for 51 percent of the league.
There are plans to extend the season into June, and presumably anyone shelling out the thick end of £300 million is not going to want to see their prize assets sitting in the stand too often.
So, the likelihood is that players will continue to be flogged.
WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN FOR WALES?
The Welsh Rugby Union are likely to support moves that they see as strengthening the Test game, not least because it helps hugely to fund the sport in Wales.
But events in the south show that international rugby’s appeal cannot be relied on without question.
It is too early to say what might happen to the Six Nations should Pichot’s plans for a brave new world take effect. The grand old competition is that rare rugby beast, something that works financially, so meddling with it would involve risk.
An accord on a global season seems to be Pichot’s magic bullet to cure many problems.
But there are so many competing voices.
Expect a river of arguments before a compromise is reached.