French fans furious at having to fly

Rugby European Cup: There were 20,000 people crowded into the Municipal Stadium in Toulouse for their match against Biarritz in the closing stages of the French championship on Saturday.

At one end of the ground, fans held up protest banners. "Dublin Orphans," said one. "We have no money to go to Dublin," roughly translated, said another.

For the first half of the match a section of the crowd proceeded to go on strike by refusing to bang their drums and blow their klaxons as Toulouse consumed their neighbours on the pitch. Polite clapping replaced the usual cacophony associated with the last home match Toulouse would play this season.

In the press conference after the match, Toulouse president Rene Bouscatel show-boated in front of the French and Irish media and verbally attacked the European Rugby Cup (ERC) representative, Diarmuid Murphy, the closest target.

Bouscatel's rage revolved around an absurd notion he had developed that the ERC should subsidise travelling supporters.With the fans protesting, what was Bouscatel to do except trump up charges against the ERC and vent his spleen?

The fans will hear and read about Bouscatel's outrage, but from an ERC perspective, the reality is that a maximum of 5,000 from the 20,000 who arrived at the Toulouse stadium will pay the quoted price of €424 to fly to Ireland for the final. Obviously, neither Toulouse nor Perpignan likes the idea of travelling, but both have accepted that the ERC are tied into prearranged deals.

"Most of the travelling fans will be from the corporate end, not the real fans," explained a Toulouse journalist.

In the fiercely Catalan region of Perpignan, the numbers travelling are closer to 2,000. The Perpignan president, Marcel Dagrenat, in a more measured response, admitted, "We are not content." With no protesting fans he could afford that small luxury of self-containment.

But he added: "If a final like this was held in France we would have 35,000 to 40,000 spectators. In 1998, when we reached the French championship, there were 40,000 at the final. I was disappointed for 24 hours, but I understand."

The ERC are in a bind. With no Irish team in a Lansdowne Road final, the European Cup event is undergoing a severe stress test, and they know it. Their marquee event as a "stand alone" spectacle, independent of the nationality of the teams involved, will stand or fall on the numbers through the turnstiles.

After its most successful year, the ERC is optimistic about finishing with its reputation further enhanced by a full house. That will require around 20,000 Irish supporters.

Local journalists from Toulouse put the anticipated low numbers of travellers down to several factors. The French holidays are coming up soon, French salary tax is due in May and the French championship is still alive, with Toulouse and their 21 international players securing a semi-final place with their 34-20 win over Biarritz.

But most importantly, the French club supporters do not have a culture of travelling outside of France in the same way as Munster fans have done so religiously since the competition began.

There have been suggestions that such an ambitious step for an increasingly popular and successful competition as the European Cup, which has been one of the greatest rugby successes of the last 10 years, has come a few years too early. The "stage it and they will come" approach would have worked for some European sides, such as Munster or Leicester, but as the competition still kicks and turns in its embryonic stage, the likelihood of a full house in Lansdowne Road may be based more in hope than expectation.

Astonishing figures for what money comes into the clubs are freely available in France, and Perpignan president Dagrenat is refreshingly candid about the expense involved: Toulouse, at the top of the pile, costs €14 million a year to run, with Perpignan, ranked at around fifth in the sliding scale, costing in the region of €6 million.

Perpignan, who will have Munster's Mick O'Driscoll next year, are the minnows in the French equation and generate their cash from a population base of 800,000. Only Dagrenat knows how that works.

The question may be how the ERC will interpret the experience. This year's competition has already been more successful than any before it. A ghostly Lansdowne Road may damage their pride, but probably not much more.