RFU looking isolated

Publicised quotes show RFU widely blamed for HC debacle

Serge Blanco heaped much of the blame on his league's decision to boycott the Heineken Cup on the RFU on Thursday, after the English governing body refused to enter an agreement with Premier Rugby over a share of ERC governance as the FFR had done with the LNR.

"If the RFU had accepted to give 50 per cent of their stake to the clubs, we would have taken part," confirmed Blanco.

It appears more and more that it is the RFU against the rest, despite the diplomatic nature of the comments from England's leading clubs in the aftermath of Blanco's shock decision.

Leicester Chief Peter Wheeler was quoted in the Guardian on Thursday as being suspicious of the RFU's motives in not signing the ERC power-share agreement, and that despite being a member of the RFU board himself!

"As I understand it the RFU is not prepared to sign the new [European] agreement everyone else has agreed to," said Wheeler.

"That's basically because they want to keep control of who goes into the competition when the long-form agreement [the agreement on how England's club game is run with respect to the internationals] runs out in 2009.

"It should be pretty simple for them, if they were being genuine, to agree that anybody going into European competition from 2009 onwards has to be a member of Premier Rugby Ltd, as is currently the case.

"I'm not sure what they expect us to do. Do they want us to play in the competition for the next couple of years, build it up and then be excluded?

"That seems to be the crux of the matter. Unless they want to nominate someone else to play in Europe, it should be quite easy either to sign up or give us assurances."

That mention of 'someone else' in the final sentence was a thinly-veiled slight at the leaked 'plans' of the previous weekend, in which a supposed blueprint for a future 'ten-franchise Premiership' was revealed in England's Sunday Times.

That blueprint was, of course, hotly denied by the RFU, but there is no smoke without fire, and it was a central part of Wasps coach Shaun Edwards' emotive lament at the potential loss of the Heineken Cup in the Guardian on Friday.

"This is like a bad dream," said Edwards.

"First there were reports that professional rugby was about to be turned on its head - hotly and convincingly denied, but unsettling none the less, especially when the future of your club is said to be under threat - then someone threatens to take away the part of the game that's extra special.

"It was easy to accept Twickenham's assurances that there is no plan to turn the Guinness Premiership into a league of 10 franchised clubs because the suggestion is clearly potty.

"However, the threat by the French to pull out of the Heineken Cup seems more real because, seen through French eyes, it could make sense.

Sale Sharks Chief Niels de Vos also questioned the RFU's motives in the columns of the Independent on Friday.

"LNR makes a number of salient points," he said.

"Why are the RFU refusing to go along with everyone else on the ERC board and agree to changes which will allow the two European tournaments to be run on hard-nosed commercial lines?

"It would allow us to improve our finances, run bigger squads and be in a position to release England squad players more often."

The issue of the crowded fixture calendar, particularly in Rugby World Cup year, also runs concurrently to this, but that is a matter for the IRB to address, as many of the people quoted above also stated.

There is much masterly inactivity on behalf of the IRB on this matter, but it would be churlish to imagine that the sport's governing body will even begin to raise a finger in action until the minions stop squabbling among themselves and present a united front.

There appears to be little chance of that in the immediate future, as summarised by one anonymous club official to the Independent on Friday.

"It is important we support the French because we are fighting for the future of the club game and we cannot trust the RFU. If we lose, England will suffer," he said.

But if the Heineken Cup falls away, if the clubs lose, everybody from fans to players to organisers will suffer, not just England. Once again, the RFU does the game no favours.