Olympic Lessons

Team GB’s historic performance in the London Olympics has led many to ask what can Rugby learn from Team GB?  There has been the fawning over cycling’s “aggregation of marginal gains”, something England Rugby pioneered, and much admiring in some quarters of the aggressive centralisation of many sports. 

But the most important idea Rugby can take from the Olympics is the no excuse attitude that UK Sport and the British Olympic Association takes over results.  The best sports get more funding and the losing sports have their funding cut.  A prime case for the RFU to consider is the delivery of their Academy programme and the delivery of their outreach work.  Is every pound working as hard as possible? 

Currently all 14 RFU Regional Academies receive the same central funding from the RFU despite producing wildly differing results, in fact there have been murmurings that the underperforming Northern Academies getting more resources despite failing on their current budgets.  This would be the equivalent of the giving swimming a funding boost because it failed.  The logic is nice and friendly: give the failures a leg up so they can compete with the successful.  But that ignores the underlying reasons why those Academies have been failing and encourages other clubs to fail as there is no incentive to have a well run Academy.

There is no auditing of Academies, those that are there are there and aren’t going anywhere and any other club that wants an academy, well tough luck you’ve got to fund it yourself.  This is no way to run an elite performance plan.  The RFU should start straightaway an audit of all 14 academies, how many internationals have they produced?  How many premiership players?  How many hours a week do they train?  How many coaches do they have?  They should then accept bids from other clubs to have their facilities audited, such as Bedford, and grade the Academies.  The best Academies would receive more central funding providing the kept producing the results and the worst performing academies would have their funding cut until started turning things around. 

A similar system could be used to audit provision of community work with the best community projects receiving more funding and growing.  This would also make community funding independent of league position, currently the RFU outsource parts of the community work to the Premiership clubs which means that when Leeds get relegated on top of losing the £3.26m PRL centrally generated revenue they also lose £50k that was funding their community work in schools (even if that £50k only helped them reach 12 secondary schools).  Then if the Cornish Pirates were doing better community work than Sale they would be able to grow and improve even more.

Currently money is wasted on bad academies and bad community work by the lucky 14 clubs that the RFU have given the permanent Golden Ticket to, the B.O.A. or UK Sport wouldn’t stand for the waste and the RFU shouldn’t either.

"International" Rugby Board or Old Colonial Tie?

Undoubtedly Rugby’s biggest problem internationally is its lack of depth.  The top of the game is actually reasonably wide, if stagnant in terms of new blood, with 4 different winners of the World Cup in 7 tournaments and no team ever retaining the trophy.  But outside the 8 foundation unions of the IRB only 4 others have got to a quarter final or better, Argentina in 1999, 2007 and 2011, Samoa in 1991 & 1995, Fiji in 1987 & 2007 and Canada in 1991.  That is really an indictment of the IRB’s efforts to spread the game.

The reason for this?  The fundamentally unfair and uneven way Rugby is governed.  Those founding 8 members get 2 votes each on the IRB’s central council whilst Canada, Japan, Italy and Argentina get 1 vote and the other 90 odd countries associated with the IRB get 6 between them through the 6 continental associations which of course the 8+4 are also members of!  Given the distain Sepp Blatter is treated in the British press, despite being elected in a true one man one vote system, you’d think the IRB would get an even worse treatment for a “democracy” that would make F.W. de Klerk blush, but no the cosy club that controls Rugby gets away with next to no scrutiny by the press.

So would a FIFA style one man one vote system be the best option?  Possibly not, even a staunch expansionist such as RM can see that giving the Bahamas the same voting rights as South Africa is perhaps not the most sensible way to grow the sport; “pork barrel” politics where favours are given to nations for their votes has lead FIFA down a difficult route.  A better option might be to look at the UN, with both permanent and termed members of an executive council elected by the full council.  England, France, New Zealand and South Africa could be the permanent members of the council with a further 5 elected from the full congress on a one man one vote system on two year terms.  The World Cup host should be decided in an open ballot, no more secret horse trading that blighted the 2011 vote where New Zealand pipped Japan to the post with some dodgy deals.

Rugby has a big advantage with the spread of the few teams it does have, Asia is the only region not to have provided a semi-finalist of the Rugby World Cup (if we follow the IRB as regarding the Americas as one region) and Rugby is well established in Japan with a professional league and a World Cup to host in 2019.  The bridgeheads into Africa and the Americas that South Africa and Argentina provide have never fully been utilised but remain as hopes for the future.  Argentina does a good amount for the other South American countries as it continues to play test matches, and compete in one of two truly continental championships rugby has, against their neighbours Uruguay and Chile as well as allowing those countries to take part in its domestic tournaments in a similar arraignment to the Pampas XV playing in South Africa.  South Africa have toyed with a similar idea for their Vodacom Cup, Namibia have competed in the past, but have never really fully bought into the idea that they have a duty to spread Rugby throughout southern Africa let alone the whole of Africa.  The, pretty outrageous, capping of Zimbabweans like Mujati or Mwatarera might be welcomed by those players as a chance to compete at a higher level but with props like that and someone like Pocock in the backrow Zimbabwe would have surely qualified for another World Cup, and that might have acted as a spur for improvement and populised the game further domestically as World Cup success has in Argentina and Georgia.

But whilst those nations are no saints they aren’t the real bad guys.  That is surely reserved for the arrogant elite that dominate and stifle European Rugby.  Georgia have consistently been the 7^th best side in Europe, winning 5 European Nations Cups, yet shockingly have NEVER played an old 5 Nations team outside a World Cup or its qualifying tournament.  In the past two World Cups they have run Ireland then Scotland extremely close, they are clearly a good side, as good as the Pacific Island sides that seem to still get international invitations, but get NO exposure against “Tier 1” nations.  If each of the 6 Nations committed to playing Georgia once at home and once away during the November Test series over the next 6 years then Georgia would have 2 tests every year until 2020 to measure themselves against their European peers whilst each nation would only have to give up 1 home November Test series match out of 18 (or more as the likes of Wales play matches outside of the International Window).   That is an incredibly small sacrifice to make to widen European Rugby horizons.  Perhaps cynically the reason this hasn’t happened is such a series of fixtures would make the case for reforming the 6 Nations into a true European Championship almost unavoidable.  It is also due to economic snobbery.  The RFU blazers and committee men just aren’t interested in going to Tbilisi, if Spain or Germany had produced Georgia’s results over such a sustained period of time the Blazers and their Wives (and their wives’ tennis partners) would be knee deep in tapas guzzling Rioja in Madrid or downing Steins of Weissbier and munching on Pretzels in Munich in no time, but a trip beyond the Iron Curtain?  No thanks chum.

I suppose to be fair to the RFU blazers (and their wives and their wives’ tennis partners) they never lowered themselves to playing Italy in a test match either nor have they ever deemed Canada or the USA worthy of a test match, and those would all be wonderful trips.

The Rugby World Cup is the pinnacle of the sport and has been the greatest driver of growth in international Rugby, but it too has challenges it must face.  The biggest challenge is threat to its integrity that uneven and unfair scheduling creates.  It seems perverse that those nations most able to deal with short turn arounds are the only ones which don’t face them.  In the 2011 Rugby World Cup it was the weaker nations who faced 4 day gaps between games where the 8 foundation unions got no less than 6 days between games.  This also has the unhelpful effect of lengthening the tournament, the Rugby World Cup must be the longest major championship.  It is pretty obvious that this is a symptom of the uneven voting structure of the IRB, after all those nations with votes are the ones least affected, perhaps this will be the issue that brings about change in the voting structure.  We can but hope.

The knock out element of the tournament also needs to be shortened, a week’s gap between the end of the group stage, the quarter final, the semi final and then the final lose all of the momentum that has been generated during the group stage.  That is perhaps a challenge too far as you want the best sides available to decide the tournament.

Refereeing is also a contentious subject.  Hopefully the ascension of Argentina to the Rugby Championship will provide a pathway for elite referees better than Italy’s acceptance into the 6 Nations has for Italian Rugby.  The total domination of elite refereeing by the 8 foundation unions is a disgrace and is highly damaging to Rugby’s appeal and growth.  Samoa have already raised the issue of bias, both overt and subliminal, but have been rebuffed with the typical arrogance that is associated with IRB.  The perception of a refereeing cosy club is damaging even though I do have faith in the IRB that it isn’t true.  More to the point someone must be refereeing the domestic Argentinean competitions that produce such prodigious players, someone is refereeing matches in Japan, Fiji, Canada and the professional league in Russia.  These countries produce high quality players by the bucket load but not a single referee to the standard of Greg Garner?  Give over.  This could be the easiest of all problems to fix, if only the IRB recognised it as a problem.

But it all comes down to the inequitable foundation stones upon which the whole edifice of International Rugby is constructed.  A move to fairer voting system at the heart of the IRB is a complete must.  At the very smallest of incremental steps that MUST be taken would be the increasing of Argentina and Italy to 2 votes each and the creation of votes for the USA, Samoa, Fiji and Tonga.  That would leave a handful of European nations outside the formal voting structure rather than the majority of major world nations.  A UN style mix of permanent and elected board members would be even better.  Fix that and a lot of the other problems would soon follow because those at the sharp end of the decisions would finally have a voice.

Rugby's Future Challenges: Championing the Championship

For the Premiership to grow stronger the Championship must grow stronger.  Solid foundations and all that.  So what is preventing this and what can be changed to allow the Championship to flourish?  The Championship is a very good division currently with positive attacking rugby to fore and none of the top teams playing a keep-it-safe-kick-it-away style.  Obviously the standard and crowds are lower than the Premiership but not by much amongst the fully professional sides who fight it out at the top of the league.  Its problems come from an almost invisible commercial presence, with no title sponsor, no major broadcasting partner, no central website and no central sponsorships at all.  The clubs can complain that their central RFU bung is lower than the Premierships, but the massive gap is not the £400k gap in the bung but the £2m+ gap in centralised commercial revenue.  Allowing the RFU to own the central rights is a fatal flaw, it will never (and realistically should never) be a priority for anyone at the RFU.  The Championship must seize their own destiny and demand to negotiate their own deals, then actually go out and do it.

But not every problem is their own making.  Premiership Rugby has out up obstacle after obstacle to block progress and hoop after hoop they must jump through.  Some form of entry criteria is certainly needed, playing on a public park with no floodlights would damage the professional brand of the Premiership and is rightly barred, but these criteria need to be achievable and have realistic timeframes.  10,000 person capacity might be reasonable for an established Premiership club but it is needless for a Championship club or a yo-yo club.  With London Welsh blowing a significant hole in the boughs of the Minimum Standards Criteria we may see several of the more onerous criteria relaxed to encourage clubs to develop their own ground.  Not surprisingly Football leads the way with administrive issues (having the 90 year advantage that it does), a brief summary of their system is that there are 3 types of criteria: Qualification, Admission and Membership.  Qualification is the absolute minimum to be allowed into the league, Admission criteria are need to remain in the league after 1 year and Membership Criteria are needed to remain in the league after 3 years.  If the Championships Membership Criteria were the same as the Premiership’s Qualification Criteria any Championship club which has been in the league for 3 years would automatically be eligible for promotion but would not have to further improve their ground unless they went on to establish themselves in the Premiership. 

As alluded to above this would require the championship to impose its own minimum standards on potential members.  That might be politically unpopular but if the Championship wants to be a second professional division then it must demand certain standards of its members.  For instances Bedford’s floodlight replacement appeal was for £75k, as Championship rugby costs approximately £1m a year in on field costs alone requiring a club to invest £75k in floodlights, which enable rearranged mid week games and evening kick offs in winter, shouldn’t be an insurmountable problem for serious contenders.  Every fan whether you are from Leicester or Wharfedale deserves good facilities to follow their team, so minimum standards across all National Divisions should become common place.

However it is not just Minimum Standards where Premiership Rugby could improve its treatment of Championship clubs, the thorny issue of Promotion and Relegation often rears its ugly head, usually by the fans of whoever happens to be bottom in March, Rugby Matters is staunchly and forever in favour of Promotion and Relegation.  In fact given the quality of the second tier RM proposes that the top tier returns to 2 up 2 down which it abandoned in 1999, a true meritocracy of clubs drives up standards on the pitch as we saw during the 90’s and also allows more clubs access to the oxygen of publicity that the Premiership provides.

But some people will say there just isn’t a market for a second professional league within England, RM struggles to countenance that idea.  Bristol had 8,000 people attend a game this season and had a higher attendance at the Memorial Ground than Saracens did at Vicarage Road.  RM believes this shows that given access to the top flight, its publicity machine and a good stadium many clubs could achieve these sorts of figures.  If Bedford had a ground fit for purpose what attendances could they get?  Newcastle will be an instructive lesson, if they keep their crowd there will be considerable evidence that Championship rugby does not harm your attendances unduly even in what can be considered an outpost of the sport.  Harlequins kept their support as did Northampton and Worcester. 

For the Championship to progress and challenge ProD2 as the best second tier in Europe it must seize its destiny from the RFU and convince the Premiership of its worth.  Then we can start worrying about how to improve the third division!

Rugby's Future Challenges: Heineken Cup and Cross Border Competition

Martyn Thomas has been stirring the pots on this subject again as the various interested people discuss and decide how any cross border competitions will look in the future.  His rather foolish view that the Celts can simply say “Shan’t!” and stop all progress or change is far too stupid to waste any more breath on.  If the French and English clubs decide the current set up of ERC is not in their interest then they won’t play in it, just as the Irish and Scots are free to not play in a new proposed competition.  The Franglais alliance is sure that the current 6 way financial split is inequitable as they provide half the teams but only get 1/3^rd of the rewards; this means an English club gets 1.4% of the total compared to 8.3% for a Scottish or Italian team.  With the French clubs having 14 mouths to feed their individual take is more like 1.2%.  The idea that this split is fair, before we consider where this money comes from, is perverse.  The English and French TV markets are overwhelmingly larger than the other 4 countries.   A change to an equal split per club seems a far fairer way to distribute the centrally generated income.  It is only greed and spite that makes the Celtic masses oppose this move.  The times of the English and French subsidising the rest of the club game is over.  If the RFU continue to do so through the 6 Nations that is their business.

The next question is who should qualify?  One camp contends that fair entrance means that the three leagues have equal representation; the other camp maintains that the 4 nations in the Celtic league are still separate entities.  This might be a popular view within those countries but is frankly pathetic.  They made their bed and now they must lie in it, Munster and Cardiff are as intertwined as Leicester and Exeter.  They are one league and do not deserve 10 qualification places, 4 of which are automatic, leaving 8 sides to fight over the remaining 6 spots.  People might cite Edinburgh but London Irish and Saracens both failed to appear in the Heineken Cup the season after reaching the semi finals due to their poor league form.  Rugby Matters doesn’t remember the rivers of Scottish tears for their plight. 

The idea to cut the top tier of European rugby to 20 teams is not only motivated by the desire to balance out qualification from the three leagues but also as a way to toughen up the Amlin Challenge Cup, the second tier of European Rugby.  Currently there are too many uncompetitive matches where amateur or semi-pro sides from Romania, Spain and Italies Super 10 get thrashed by the fully pro sides from England and France, plus occasionally Newport or Connacht.  A big consequence of the Scottish and Welsh decisions to murder their club games in the fruitless quest for Heineken Cup success is the drop in numbers and standard in the Amlin Challenge Cup.  These thrashing do nothing to grow the game in Spain or Romania nor do they help the clubs handing out the thrashings.  Strengthening the Amlin Challenge Cup would help cushion the blow when a side misses out on the Heineken Cup, games against Perpignan and Llanelli are far more attractive than games against Rovigo and Gernika.  It is also hoped that a stronger Amlin Cup would be reflected in its commercial value to broadcasters and sponsors, you would think opening up the possibility of Munster, Leinster or any of the Welsh sides would make the broadcasting contract more valuable. 

But what of the likes of Spain or Romania?  Would they just be cut adrift and forgotten about?  Not under the current plan to introduce a third tier aimed at the developing semi pro leagues around Europe.  Limited cross border competitions already exist between clubs in Eastern Europe and Northern Europe such as the Regional Rugby Championship and the North Sea Cup, the plan would see these competitions effectively merge and new nations join the fray too.  The two finalists would then qualify for the next year’s Amlin Challenge Cup.  The exact form of that competition is up for discussion, involving as many countries as possible has to be the prime goal.  Economic snobbery has to be avoided at all costs; the likes of Romania, Georgia, Ukraine and the Baltics are just as important as Portugal, Spain, Germany and Belgium.

Refereeing in the big Heineken Cup games are also a source of controversy.  It is frankly offensive that referees from Wales are considered neutral when they officiate in matches involving Irish or Scottish sides.  They referee these sides regularly and with the vagaries in the laws regular contact with referees is a significant advantage.  Neutral refereeing is about far more than what country a person was born in, nobody would suggest Northumbrian Dave Pearson would favour Exeter just because he was English any more than they would suggest he would favour Sale just because they are northern.  It is about the referees becoming more accustomed to one side than the other, so that that side knew where the referee’s blind spots are.  See Leinster’s ruthless exploitation of Nigel Owens’s weakness at penalising interference with a line out jumper.  This is another issue that should have been sorted out when the Celtic league was formed, rather than be left to fester as a source of resentment. 

The timings of the tournament have also come in for criticism; taking out the prime attendance weekend of Easter from the domestic schedule is a long time compliant, as are the semis and final taking prime weekends at the end of the season.  A move for the Heineken Cup or a successor to September should free up the end of the season for domestic matters as well as the prime Easter weekend.

But these aren’t the only cross border competitions we also have the British & Irish Cup competed for by second tier sides in England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland as well as the Anglo-Welsh Cup, which is pretty self explanatory.  The B&I Cup has had a strange existence so far with the Irish using it as a proving ground for young talent and fringes players whilst the English primarily wanted it for the extra games.  With the Championship being shrunk to 12 teams there is a definite need for more games amongst the English second tier clubs, and the B&I Cup has stepped into the breach.  The Anglo-Welsh Cup was also initially brought about as a revenue generator, it apparently still fulfils this function even in it’s somewhat emasculated recent format. 

So what is the future of cross border competitions?  The 2015 season could become a watershed for cross border competitions, it is hard to work out how the Aviva Premiership can be fit in after the World Cup, thanks to the IRBs cowardly compromise over the final date, without playing the Anglo-Welsh mid week, playing all through the 6 Nations and shortening the proposed Australia tour to one or two test matches, let alone the how Orange Top 14 in France will be organised.  There is a significant chance of no European competition that season.  Beyond that all Rugby Matters is sure about is that the Heineken Cup under its current format will not last.  Too much propping up of the Celtic fringe and too much interference with the domestic calendar.

Rugby's Future Challenges: Transparency and Instituitional Secrecy

Rugby’s biggest challenge is the complete lack of clarity from the top.  It is the same at both the RFU and PRL.  Absolutely anything and everything is shrouded in as much secrecy as possible; from next season it will get even worse when PRL introduce a “Marquee Player” whose wages are to be outside the Salary Cap, not only are the Salary Cap regulations never fully revealed but clubs will be barred from announcing who their “Marquee Player” is and how much his wages are.  And they don’t seem to realise this will be a cynic’s paradise.  There is some merit to not revealing the player’s wages, who would want their wages publicised?   

But to not even say whose wages are being taken out of the cap is ridiculous.

Another fine example of PRL’s shameful attitude to openness is the issue of Minimum Standards.  The Criteria were kept secret, the auditing of clubs is kept secret and the outcomes of the audits are kept secret.  This has to change; if they are to be retained the criteria should be published openly, after all if the criteria are fair then why hide them away?  And the results of current member’s audit should be published.  The Club 1 situation in London Welsh's appeal is disgraceful, not only did an unnamed club lose a vital 'A' criteria nobody knows when this even occurred!.  Releasing the punishments of current members will do wonders to decrease the cynicism towards the rules and PRL.  Rules must be seen to be enforced, or people will naturally assume they aren’t being followed.

The RFU’s smoky back rooms and power plays are no better.  Far too much power is held by barely accountable county buffers, how Welsh farmer Martyn Thomas ever managed to scheme his way into power is beyond me.  The RFU should abolish all county interference in the running of the national and international game.  Most of these buffers are well meaning amateurs but the opportunity for shysters to wield power is unacceptable. 

The RFU are actually the leaders in openness with Judge Jeff Blackett forcing through the open publishing of all disciplinary reports.  What is good for the goose is good for the gander; all RFU reports should be published openly for scrutiny.

Overall we need a fundamental paradigm shift in attitudes towards transparency and secrecy.  We need to show their is nothing to hide.  Sunlight is the best disinfectant.