IRFU ‘absolutely happy’ with Champions Cup format

IRFU chief executive Philip Browne has declared he and the IRFU are "absolutely happy" with the new European Rugby Champions Cup format and organisational structure.

This is despite what appears to have been a significant shift in the balance of commercial and financial power toward the Anglo-French clubs as part of the brave new dawn.

The Anglo-French power block has increased its voting rights and financial share from less than 50 per cent to 66 per cent combined, albeit that the three Celtic unions have been assured that their participation fund will remain at €5.1 million apiece (with the Italians guaranteed €4.7 million).

Governance
Browne maintained "the governance of the game still lies with the unions and the governance of this tournament lies with the participants. Nobody was going to be entirely happy", even though all the demands of Premiership Rugby and Ligue Nationale de Rugby were seemingly met, with the Celtic/ Italian axis required to make the compromises.

Accepting the new three- way split across the leagues, Browne stressed that from an Irish viewpoint, “there will be a financial distribution on a per club basis within the Rabo in due course when the revenues get to a certain level, and that is an advantage for us as we field four teams as opposed to two teams in Scotland and two teams in Italy.”

Although the Celts and Italians wanted to retain a 24-team primary elite tournament, the new format would also make for a stronger secondary competition, said Browne. With all six founding countries still in the fold, “professional rugby in Europe still has a set of competitions that underpin international rugby”.

Nonetheless, a further compromise for Irish supporters was the compromise BT/Sky deal, which will oblige Irish supporters to fork out another €240 annually toward the Setanta package if they want full access to the tournament.

Discussion point
"Of course that was a discussion point and a consideration, but at the end of the day we had to find a solution. We're in a situation where there will be a television agreement involving Sky and BT for a number of years and when that's over, it goes back to a normal arrangement. That I suppose is the price we have to pay."

To that end, he added, the increased revenues from the BT/ Sky deal made it more feasible that the Champions Cup will fulfil the grandiose claim by Premier Rugby Ltd chief executive Mark McCafferty that within five years the new organisation will double the €50 million turnover generated by European Rugby Club (ERC).

Browne praised the ERC for its “fantastic job” and expressed his disappointment that it will be disbanded.

With the union and the provinces under greater pressure to retain their leading players from French and English clubs backed by more lucrative television deals, benefactors and an increased slice of the European pie, the IRFU chief executive admitted the union may have to examine limited ways of allowing the provinces more autonomy and/or private investment.

“In the last six/nine/12 months, our business model has been under pressure and so we have to continue to look at it and we do continue to look at it. There’s one thing that we won’t sacrifice, we won’t sacrifice control of the game in this country because we can’t afford to. What we will want is to ensure that we control our national players for the benefit of the national team.

“So from that point of view, yes, we have to see if there are other ways that we can generate revenues, but not to the extent of losing control of our players and to the disadvantage of our national team.”

As an aside, he maintained Connacht would "have as many chances as anyone else" to qualify for the Champions Cup through the Pro12, and he effectively ruled out the possibility of Robbie Henshaw being moved to another province at the behest of the Irish management, given he has signed a new two-year deal with his native province.

This is contrary to the suggestion of the IRFU president Pat Fitzgerald last week, albeit Connacht may not be entirely placated by Browne's wording.

“If a player is in-contract he is in-contract. The fact of the matter is, probably not,” he said in relation to Henshaw moving on. “There is absolutely no point in going down the road of imposing decisions on people, on organisations. We have to decide what is in the best interests of the game in Ireland and the individual player.”

“That requires discussions and what is in the best interests of the provinces and the national team in particular. There are no decisions taken about anything, other than what we do want to see is greater movement between the provinces on the basis that if players are to develop they have to have game time.”

Browne also denied budgets for the domestic/club game have been cut, or will be imminently. “That wouldn’t be correct and in fact I would be pretty certain that for next year it will be the opposite, once the union decides it’s budgets . . .”

“But I’m more than conscious of the stresses and strains within the domestic game and it’s something which we deal with on a monthly basis in our meetings. So we’re in the middle of budgets for next year and I would imagine there would be a response to concerns about the domestic game.”