Ex-Scotland boss: English and French clubs ‘really have control’ of global calendar not World Rugby
French giants Toulouse taking on English outfit Sale Sharks, and Crusaders side in a huddle, who are currently the top ranked Super Rugby outfit.
English and French clubs have been accused by former Scotland and Leinster head coach Matt Williams of preventing the sport from expanding.
Two weeks ago, Williams blamed those teams for the current state of the Investec Champions Cup, which he stated was “farcical”.
He has now gone a step further by insisting that they are effectively controlling the global calendar and stopping inter-hemisphere club matches from taking place.
Williams criticism
“If you could say, let’s get the top three Super franchises and we play the best of [Europe], let’s say Toulouse, Bordeaux and Leinster right now, they would be fabulous games of rugby.
“It’s something I want and I know it’s what the leadership, like [new World Rugby chair] Brett Robinson, want to do.
“How they get that into the calendar is a problem because unlike New Zealand, Australia and Ireland, the French rugby union and the English rugby union do not own the club competition, it’s owned privately by the clubs and they don’t want to drop games because that means they drop revenue.
“That’s the problem with the world calendar. It’s not World Rugby or the home unions, it is the French Top 14 clubs and the English Premiership clubs that refuse to budge, and really have control of the global calendar at the moment.”
That criticism comes despite reports in April last year suggesting a Club World Cup is set to be staged in 2028.
There has been no firm update since then but the Guardian reported that French sides, who could have provided a stumbling block, have come round to the idea.
The Top 14 remains the most physically demanding league in the world but it is also the most lucrative, allowing them to carry deep squads.
As a result, they, alongside Irish giants Leinster, have dominated in the Champions Cup over the past few seasons.
“The Top 14 in France has boomed over the last few years, it is by far the best competition in the world, but it is a marathon, not a sprint. These guys start in August and the final is in June – how they keep going is beyond me,” Williams said.
“The teams that do well in that competition, they basically have two or three teams that they run all year. They can rest their players.
“Leinster, my old club, are similar. They are a fantastic organisation, a great story – they came from almost nothing. I got there and it was like the wild west in 1999. What they’ve done and how they’ve built has been extraordinary.
“But they play three teams over the course of the season.”
English struggles
In contrast to the Top 14, Williams believes that the Premiership has gone in the opposite direction and has declined both as a product and in terms of its overall quality.
“Unless you can cope in the northern hemisphere with that type of scenario where you’ve got two or three teams, the length of the season makes it impossible to succeed. That’s the problem with the English game,” he added.
“The English club competition has dropped dramatically – the English hate me saying that – but you only have to look at the results in the Champions Cup and who made the quarter-finals.”
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