RFU refuses to back down

ENGLISH rugby's embattled governing body is now almost ready to jump into bed - though not quite alone - with BSkyB and then hope the Five Nations' Championship will be saved by competing broadcasters bidding up the price of separate television contracts with the other home unions.

This perilous path, with ITV as probable partner for Sky in England, was explicitly confirmed as Rugby Football Union policy at Twickenham yesterday when the union restated the case which 12 days ago won the approval of its full committee but not that of Cliff Brittle, its own executive's chairman. In vain Brittle had instructed that yesterday's briefing should not take place.

The RFU is keen to have the penny and the bun, so to speak. Tony Hallett, the secretary, said on the one hand: "The market place is that much more vibrant by having Sky in it." And on the other: "Our honest target is to mix and match, with no exclusive deal. I take the moral high ground as opposed to the financial high ground on this issue."

Having resolved to sit alone - with its prospective £150m - on the moral high ground by rejecting the equal four way split that is televised rugby's tradition, the RFU is pulling on its most emollient face, a model of sweet reasonableness plainly intended to put its Celtic antagonists in a belligerent light.

"I've been accused of being blimpish and arrogant, and I'm told Willie John McBride thinks I'm an idiot," John Jeavons Fellows, the RFU's main TV negotiator, said.

In the light of current bargaining positions, it is curious to note that the RFU already has a substantially larger share, because although the £27m payable by the BBC under the 1994-97 contract has been divided four ways England's massive cut of the subsidiary Sky contract takes it to 37 per cent. Evidently, this no longer suffices.

The English are now in effect relying on either Sky or the BBC or ITV or a combination not only to pay the RFU a vast sum for the next TV contract beginning next year but also to do something similar for the other unions. Only this way, it seems, can the championship, the Lions and conceivably even England's status as one of the hosts of the 1999 World Cup be preserved.

Yesterday's plaintive message from Twickenham was that England would never voluntarily leave the Five Nations, so would have to be kicked out. To avoid that eventuality, the RFU would now like their "friends", as they were described, to listen to its detailed position so that everyone might benefit. Utopia will then be achieved.

"Consultants' advice suggests that by doing it singly in the same way as France, the broadcasters singly or jointly will go from one country to another to bid for the rights for the matches played in that territory," Hallett said. "We believe that all will be well once the negotiations are under way."

The RFU legitimses its argument with statistics - 77.7 per cent of the rugby viewing public of the United Kingdom, 82 per cent of the population, expenditure of nearly £8m to service the game in England which is claimed to be very nearly as much as the other three unions put together.

But there is another agenda, freely admitted yesterday. The RFU took out a £34m loan to cover the rebuilding of Twickenham which costs an annual £3.5m to service. The first of four equal repayments is due in 1999 with the fourth in 2003, so the RFU needs serious money and it needs it quickly.

"We're not talking about selling the Five Nations; we're only talking about selling the Twickenham matches. We wish to help other nations. Some may say that sounds patronising, but all we want to do is organise our own balance sheet," said Jeavons Fellows.