Loose Pass: England’s crisis, France’s rude health and the non-handshake in New Zealand
This week we will mostly be concerning ourselves with England’s crisis, France’s rude health and the curious case of the non-handshake…
Long winter ahead
A figure close to GBP 2bn was the combined summer outlay of England’s clubs, a sign of a collection of organisations and competition reaching a sort of self-sustaining criticality in terms of popularity and financial clout.
Sadly, Loose Pass is referring to soccer’s Premier League. Meanwhile, in the rugby, one of England’s clubs – one which, we hasten to add, ticks a lot of boxes for what ought to count as a sustainable model, such as ownership of its own facilities and a reasonable local fan base, needs to find someone with 0.3% of the soccer summer transfer outlay within the next couple of days, or it will cease to exist.
Rumours are flying furiously around that Worcester might not be the last this season. Clubs’ energy bills are set to quadruple, making matchdays extremely costly. The general cost-of-living crisis holding the UK in its grip may well have an effect on attendances, not least if clubs pass on those energy bills to the ticket-buyers.
Who else can absorb them though? Not the clubs, most are already weighed down under the heavy burden of debt, with Wasps’ foray into capital-raising debt finance looking increasingly like a mortal blunder. Those clubs which aren’t directly under heavy debts are often under debts of goodwill to owners with deep pockets; how long will those owners keep the faith? And are there any others out there at the turnstiles, stamping feet with impatience to be let in to the money-burning club game? Given the current economic climate, that is unlikely.
Clubs are blaming the pandemic, but the problems were already there. Chopping the salary cap from GBP 6.4m to 5m is a nice headline-maker, but a combined saving of 17m now is actually pretty paltry for a league where combined losses amount nominally to a shade over GBP 0.5bn over 25 years. In real terms, that’s a much higher figure.
Worcester’s director of rugby Steve Diamond has emerged from the mess with huge credit for his honesty in an impossible situation; an interview given to BBC Radio last week was succinct about how bloated some aspects of the professional club game have become off the pitch, never mind the reckless way in which clubs have thrown money at some players in the past (Worcester are no innocents there).
Premiership Rugby CEO Simon Massie-Taylor insists that there is a model and a market opportunity, citing a 9m fanbase for the game but only a small proportion of that drawn to the clubs. He’s possibly right, although also possibly a little agnostic of how tribal and local community-based the club game is; just because someone living in Luton is a rugby fan, he or she is unlikely to be a regular at Franklin’s Gardens.
Where he is definitely right is that the fanbase is there, but in how it is attached to the international game like barnacles to a rock. That’s not going to change when, as is likely this season, the poster-boy international players could miss half their club’s games to international duty. Would soccer be so buoyant if Manchester City only had Erling Haaland for half their games? Unlikely. The next round of negotiations over player release and governance between the RFU and the clubs is in 2024. They are often acrimonious anyway, but there seems to be even more at stake this time.
That is, of course, if there is a healthy club game to argue its case. But with Worcester on the brink, at least three others also rubbing brows at the figures and wondering what to do, the RFU may hold all the cards by then.
And in France?
You would be forgiven for thinking that such problems would afflict clubs everywhere, given the nature of current economic health, but France’s Top 14 picked up last weekend where it left off: stadia full of vibrant crowds, thrilling finales, plenty of tries and not a whiff of uncertainty about the direction in which the game is going.
Champions Montpellier came a marginal cropper at La Rochelle. Toulouse won a nail-biter in Bordeaux. Stade Francais lock Paul Gabrillagues said that those faint of heart should not come to the Jean-Bouin. Six of the seven matches were decided by a converted try or less. There was little focus on anything else bar the rugby, because there didn’t need to be.
There are some crucial differences to the club game in France, not least the fact that many play in municipally-financed stadia rather than having to stump up for private facilities, but the more rigorous financial governance and the willingness of club and country to work together have made for a far healthier picture.
Im-Matera
Dane Coles is, according to many, one of those you just don’t like to play against. Plenty of lip, a fair bit of niggle, some outlandish talent to boot: he’s a target alright. He’ll happily kick you when down on the pitch.
So he’s probably the last person you want to see trotting for the final 10 minutes when you are on the fatigued end of a revenge-driven 50-point blootering by his team.
No love lost between Matera and Coles.#NZLvARG pic.twitter.com/CBsF0faFdZ
— Jared Wright (@jaredwright17) September 3, 2022
But refusing to shake hands after the game? That’s not the best look. It remains in Matera’s head what Coles said or did to trigger his ire, but it must have been quite something; contrast it all with the two images of the clash between Eben Etzebeth and Allan Alaalatoa, with the former in his own special brand of bulge-eyed, vein-strained incandescence on the pitch when confronting the latter, yet full of toothy-grinned bonhomie off the pitch when challenged to a cheers after it.