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RFU scrap « Thread Started on Apr 28, 2007, 2:57am »
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Clubs warned over 'suicide' move
England's clubs want a shareholding in the Heineken Cup Rugby Football Union chairman Martyn Thomas believes England's clubs would be committing "suicide" by joining a French boycott of the Heineken Cup. France's top clubs decided on Thursday to withdraw from the Heineken Cup and the European Challenge Cup next season.
And the Premiership clubs are set to join them unless the RFU grants them a shareholding in the tournament.
"I think it's a suicidal decision, whatever the rights and wrongs of the issue," Thomas told Radio Leicester.
"You don't take it out on the sponsors, broadcasters and players."
The Premiership clubs are already talking of arranging an alternative competition if the Heineken Cup is effectively killed off by the withdrawal of the French and English clubs.
We have a fundamental right to compete in European competition
Peter Wheeler Leicester chief executive But Thomas added: "It would be inappropriate to sanction fixtures to fill in gaps in the season which have been created by a breach of contract.
"We would ask players not to take part in a game that hasn't been sanctioned."
Leicester chief executive Peter Wheeler told BBC Sport that any boycott would not necessarily mean the clubs would miss out on European matches.
"We want to play in Europe next season," he said.
"If we can't play in the Heineken Cup, we will look at alternatives."
The French and English sides say the RFU agreed to grant them a 50% shareholding in the Heineken Cup at a meeting last October and has backtracked, a claim denied by Thomas.
We think the structure needs reviewing, regardless of the other issues
Wasps chief executive David Davies "The daft thing is that the basis to resolve this was agreed on last October but the RFU has reneged on that," said Wheeler.
"We were happy with the shareholding proposals made in October, with 50% for the unions and 50% for the clubs, and every other union agreed.
"This is a club competition and it's only right we should have a shareholding.
"If the RFU disagrees, we have a fundamental right to compete in European competition.
"I'm not sure you can stop anyone doing that, although we would obviously need to take advice."
Wheeler's Wasps counterpart David Davies confirmed talks are under way about viable alternatives, claiming the current Heineken Cup structure is unfair on English and French clubs.
"I have no doubt something will come out of these discussions which will lead to a European competition next season," he told the Daily Mail.
"We think the structure needs reviewing, regardless of the other issues.
"It is unfair that French and English clubs go through a full season-long programme and only half qualify whereas the Magners League go through a languid process and nearly everyone qualifies."
Opposing sides find it good to talk, but divisions remainDavid Hands, Rugby Correspondent The RFU and Premier Rugby Ltd (PRL) will go into today’s meeting with Syd Millar, the chairman of the IRB, having found little common ground at yesterday’s meeting in London of the RFU council.
The council, however, will have concluded that the differences between the two sides that have led to the withdrawal of England’s Guinness Premiership clubs from European competition next season are not irreconcilable. A tepid RFU statement concluded with the pious wish that “the RFU and PRL complete their negotiations with a satisfactory resolution for all parties”, but the meeting may have produced greater clarity than before.
It was a minor triumph, for example, that the council voted for Mark McCafferty, the PRL chief executive, to attend the meeting so that the council members could judge for themselves the differences between the stance of the clubs and that of the union’s management board, which, by and large, was not in favour of McCafferty’s presence.
There is a clear difference between the sides as to what constitutes “full management control” of the players — in simple terms, who determines when they do or do not play and whose medical criteria, those of the clubs or the union, should be followed. In all of this, the shareholding in European Rugby Cup Ltd (ERC) — the reason for Millar’s meeting today and with the French federation and clubs at the start of next week — is no more than a bargaining chip.
“Today might have lanced a few boils,” one council member said, and at least the negotiating teams representing the RFU and PRL are back at the table. A motion that ERC shares be divided equally between union and clubs was withdrawn but did achieve the purpose of a full debate.
So the future of the Heineken Cup and European Challenge Cup remains in abeyance, although there seems an engaging confidence among Premiership coaches that there will be a tournament in which they will participate next season. Certainly European qualification will remain a motivating factor for the clubs in today’s final round of the Premiership.
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