Last night just before I went to bed I switched on Sky Sports and saw the banner headline that the Heineken Cup had been saved as the national Rugby Union’s had signed a deal. I thought I would have to write this morning about eating humble pie. Indeed if you were to believe the headlines in The Times this morning “English clubs Face Isolation…” you would think that things have swung decisively against the English rugby union clubs (if you want to read more about this then I’ve been banging on about it on this blog so check it out).

However, when the articles are read it would seem nothing of the sort has been agreed and that the break up of European rugby is still on course. Indeed, BT Sports has now agreed to increase the funding of English Premiership rugby next year no matter what happens. In fact it ‘agreement’ could be viewed as a last gasp attempt by the old guard to try and put the up start clubs into their place. There will be a whole lot of arm twisting over the next few weeks to try and get the French clubs to break with the English clubs but I suspect that this may be fruitless as the French Clubs see this as a way of making their league even more rich and powerful than it already is and so probably will refuse to play ball. If this is the case then we may well have the situation whereby the Heineken Cup will be little more than the RaboBank pro am cup with the two biggest rugby countries missing and the Welsh not wishing to be there at all. At the same time all of the talent would be looking to move to England and France.

I really don’t know what the answer is when the old guard try to defeat the pursuit of money…no wait it usually means that the old guard looses and the money wins – painful as that may well be. What is more interesting is to see how this “agreement” was plastered around as some form of victory when it would seem to be nothing of the sort. At times like this you really should check what message the messenger is trying to peddle and then take aim and ….

Simon Marchini
www.simonmarchini.co.uk