European Cup:Few can see the winners in yesterday's decision. Presumably the French and the English clubs believe they have won a battle of sorts but the confirmation yesterday afternoon that clubs from the two biggest nations in European rugby would not participate in next year's Heineken European Cup sounded final and defiant.
Already the cost to the infrastructure of the game in Ireland, the financial security of the four provincial teams and the future of the game in Ireland, Scotland, Wales and Italy are being calculated. And unless diplomacy over the coming months can retrieve a dire situation, then the European Cup as Irish supporters have come to know it is dead.
The depressing part is that there is no reason to believe things will change.
The French clubs, through their Ligue Nationale de Rugby president, Serge Blanco, confirmed late afternoon they would be boycotting the event, and the English clubs quickly rowed in over an issue that appears to have several threads.
The French and English clubs are furious about the shareholding issue in the European Rugby Cup (ERC) between Premier Rugby (the English clubs) and the Rugby Football Union (RFU). Premier Rugby say an agreement was reached with the RFU last October for the RFU to hand over some of their ERC shares as part of a tournament accord. The RFU deny this.
As it stands the six unions own the ERC shares, and while the RFU are unwilling to give their clubs a slice of the cake, the French are. Ireland's four teams are controlled by the IRFU, so there is no issue there.
The French Rugby Federation (FFR) president, Bernard Lapasset, who attended yesterday's meeting, tried to avert the boycott by offering French clubs a blocking minority of 15.66 percent of their ERC stakes for two years, but that was turned down.
"I'm very disappointed because I felt that was a strong and reasonable proposal," Lapasset said. "We need European competition but it will be very difficult to rebuild."
But the French have other gripes and in their meeting yesterday in a hotel near Orly airport, they voted, 14 clubs to three, to walk away from the most successful club competition in the Northern Hemisphere. As Blanco said after the meeting, "We love the European Cup as much as anyone else. Either respect us or don't respect us."
One vexed issue for the French is that their championship, which they hold in high esteem, will be played during the World Cup this year, while the European Cup will begin after the World Cup ends. In that there is conflict over status and position.
There are other concerns. The French, with 14 clubs involved between the European Cup and the Challenge Cup, take about 25 per cent of the money, which for 2007 will amount to roughly €8 million. The English, who provide 12 clubs to the two competitions, also take 25 per cent of the cake. Ireland takes between 12 and 13 per cent of the money and provides four teams.
One ERC official said, "The French clubs would see the whole situation differently from everyone else. They would see it as them providing money for smaller nations so that they (the smaller nations) can beat them in the European Cup. They'd see it as unequal."
The official also said if it were purely a money issue it would have been sorted out.
Either way the implications for Ireland are extreme. With Bank of Ireland pumping €7 million into Leinster earlier this week and Toyota agreeing to sponsor Munster for €5 million between now and 2010, the vexed question is whether without a European Cup the sponsors will get returns.
Thomond Park is being redeveloped to seat 26,000. Considerable IRFU money is also being spent on Donnybrook and Lansdowne Road. Without a healthy European event, the question of filling those venues and paying off the debts is real.
It could bring into question how the "international" standard players Leinster coach Michael Cheika spoke about this week are going to be paid.
It may also tempt internationally acclaimed players such as Brian O'Driscoll, Paul O'Connell and Gordon D'Arcy to look elsewhere for the challenges they need to develop their rugby.
The ERC are also committed over the next four years to television and a range of sponsors, including the title sponsor Heineken and the "premium partners", the Italian telecom company Alice, FedEx, EDF and Ford.
According to an ERC official, signed contracts over that time span are worth around €150 million. Those companies may well be looking at their get-out clauses today.
To further complicate the rationale of the decision, the attendances for the pool stages of this year's competition grew by over eight per cent while the viewing figures in France for the European Cup have doubled.
The English and French clubs may well know what they are doing. But from this side of the European rugby world, the Golden Goose appears to have just been slaughtered.
