Six Nations unions divided over revenue and Nations Championship plans
England and France demand unequal share to get clubs on side
• World Rugby puts back world league deadline to 5 April
• World Rugby puts back world league deadline to 5 April
The Six Nations countries are in danger of falling out over plans to aggregate their television and commercial rights, with England and France demanding an unequal share of the proceeds to pay off their clubs.
The Six Nations set up Project Light 18 months ago to see whether pooling everything together for their championship and autumn matches would yield a greater financial return after struggling to find sponsors. It gathered momentum after Benjamin Morel, who spent 20 years with the NBA, took over as chief executive at the end of last year.
Four investment companies, including CVC, who this year took a stake in Premiership Rugby, and IMG, have been interviewed this year. The unions would remain in control, conceding 27% equity in the business, but allow the successful bidder to take over the commercial arm, almost certainly meaning the end of the Six Nations being shown exclusively on free-to-air television.
Meetings have been going on during the championship that ended last weekend but a sticking point has been the insistence of England and France that they should receive more than the other four because they would have to buy the support of their powerful clubs.
That has left the other four questioning the value of a deal that would potentially make them more vulnerable to Premiership and Top 14 clubs when it came to holding on to their best players. Wales, the grand slam champions, are already under pressure from their squad with a new contract system being drawn up and English clubs looking to sign players such as Gareth Anscombe, the Cardiff Blues fly-half who kicked 20 points against Ireland last Saturday and created his side’s try.
The feeling was expressed in a recent meeting that Premiership Rugby was becoming increasingly bullish after its deal with CVC and that the Rugby Football Union needed to show some leadership. It is understood the RFU has been considering contingency plans should it fail to reach agreement with its clubs over the international calendar. One would even see newly formed English regional teams entering the Pro14 with players centrally contracted.
The four would stand to gain more from World Rugby’s plan to set up a Nations Championship from 2022, although Ireland, Scotland and Italy oppose the governing body’s insistence on relegation being introduced to the Six Nations and to the Rugby Championship, which would be expanded from four to six teams, even though it could take the form of a play-off and a parachute payment would be made.
World Rugby met the leading unions, together with Fiji and Japan, in Dublin last week. It initially gave them two weeks to sign a due diligence agreement, which would allow the mutual inspection of books, but that deadline has been put back until 5 April. Under the plan there would be no involvement of private investment companies and the Six Nations would remain on free-to-air television.
source:The Guardian
Comments
Post a Comment