SANZAR intervention enlargens the picture
The news that SANZAR’s members have weighed in with their support of the European unions currently scrapping with the French and English clubs might be seen as impertinence by some.
After all, these are the unions who were the key players in ushering in professionalism to the sport, the unions who have continually signed television and media rights deals of brazen self-serving which have ensured from start to finish that the likes of Argentina, Fiji, and Samoa are left in rugby’s wilderness to scrap like seagulls over discarded chips.
It might also be seen as a panic reaction from SANZAR, as the English and French clubs determined to break away from union shackles flex their Schwarzenegger-sized financial muscles.
The juxtaposition between SANZAR’s statement of support and the loss to international rugby and the NZRU of Carl Hayman – a 27-year-old prop in his prime and the best player relative to position in the world – is more than coincidence.
But be it panic or impertinence, the fact that SANZAR are taking an interest shows just how deep the axes being ground in France and England are cutting into the sport globally. It also shows just how powerful the clubs have become.
England and France are the only two countries in the world that have shown themselves capable of sustaining major professional domestic leagues, and have backed that ability with the necessary gumption to push it through.
South Africa and New Zealand have seen their more traditional competitions eviscerated by the suits, and the traditional provinces dance to the unions’ tune. Not always willingly, but they do. Yet in both countries there is great disillusionment in the rugby fraternity at the loss or devaluation of the traditional big domestic games.
The news on Monday that SKY New Zealand’s Super 14 viewing figures were considerably down on last season and with South Africa’s DSTV figures also on the downturn, added to a drop in attendances at the games, showed that fans there are voting with their feet and eyes. And suddenly the NZRU no longer has the clout to retain Carl Hayman. And so continues the vicious circle. And so SANZAR’s knickers begin to twist.
All the accusations of impertinence so far have been thrust on Serge Blanco and the clubs and club chairmen/owners who have followed his lead, but for the unions to fail to heed the claims of the two bodies who have managed to make a real success of a rudderless accession to professionalism is to ignore the deeper problem.
This Heineken Cup farce has never been an argument just about shareholding and scheduling in Europe. It has always been the bargaining margin over the future of sub-international club rugby; a stark pointer that all is not well in the professional game and that it is time everybody got their heads together to put it right, so that there is direct unilateral governance of all rugby tournaments by the relevant bodies but none of the ridiculous overlapping of priorities such as England might suffer in June (should Wasps and Leicester make the Heineken Cup final, England will be shorn of at least ten senior players for their first Test against South Africa in Bloemfontein).
Then there are the players. Thomas Castaignede has long been a fine journalist as well as an active player, and often has something particularly pertinent and interesting to say. This passage was in his most recent offering: “I think all we rugby players feel a bit detached from what is going on, but what Blanco has said about the importance of club rugby reflects the way I see the situation as a player.
“Blanco is a former international, and so is (IRB Chairman Syd) Millar, but Blanco is also one of the club presidents, and a man who understands the economics of club rugby, the difficulty in finding sponsors and in bringing on young players, and the constant need for success on the pitch. When someone with Blanco’s stature and background speaks out that sounds an alarm bell, and we need to listen.”
With SANZAR now adding their ten pen’orth to the European debate, it does at least seem now that truly everyone is listening and contributing. The next step is to get them all talking properly and examining how to serve the players such as Castaignede, and the fans such as you and I.
Right now, everybody is arguing pettily over whose service is best, like waiters in a snotty restaurant scrambling over a big-tip table, which is leading to no service for the customers at all.
By Richard Anderson
