AIB give €5m and five years to clubs

Fears that AIB might imminently withdraw their sponsorship of the All-Ireland League were handsomely dispelled at the bank's international headquarters in Dublin yesterday when the bank and the IRFU announced details of a five-year partnership, which actually exceeds their sponsorship of the league over the last eight years.

Indeed, AIB's sponsorship of the league for a further five years is but one plank of the deal, which will also cover two new cup competitions and a club international for non-contracted club players, yielding €1 million per year all told in sponsorship over the period.

In keeping with their grassroots profile in club hurling and Gaelic football, golf and other sports, the bank have pressed for a more hands-on role from clubs and the turn-out of club presidents and AIB branch representatives from around the country at yesterday's announcement was proof of the clubs' desire for such a helping hand in increasingly difficult times for them.

"An awful lot of what we do in terms of sponsorship is centred around supporting the community and supporting the clubs," said AIB's general manager, Maurice Crowley, "and we see club rugby very clearly in that vein as well and we're happy to continue supporting that. For us, what the clubs represent fits in well with our logo in supporting clubs and supporting community."

Uppermost, obviously in AIB's renewed agreement with the union is their continuing sponsorship of the AIL for a further five years. Although billed yesterday as having a "new structure", in reality it's a return to an old system of three divisions comprising 16 clubs each and thus a slight modification of the fall-out arising from Wanderers' infamous waterlogged pitch, ensuing court cases with the union and subsequent imbalances in the three divisions.

The return to the old format came about at the insistence of the clubs after they rejected the union's flawed proposal to have the composition of each division based on that season's provincial leagues. Instead, effectively, that proposal has metamorphosed into the introduction of two new AIB All-Ireland Cups, one senior and one junior.

Rather than an open-draw, 48-club senior cup per se, 17 clubs will go into the draw, comprising six qualifiers from Leinster, five from Munster, four from Ulster and two from Connacht, necessitating one preliminary round match (between two Munster teams) in November and culminating in both finals next April. It is hoped that the inaugural AIB Cup final will be televised.

Another novel concept is the club international for non-contracted club players. "We've no intentions of going into a Six Nations at any point," confirmed Eddie Wigglesworth, the IRFU's director of rugby, who envisages one home club international per year, sponsored by AIB, which this year will be against Scotland and may or may not lead to one bi-annual or annual reciprocal international away.

Henceforth, also, the newly appointed domestic rugby manager, Kevin Potts, will liaise with four full-time AIB club development managers, one per province, who are already in situ: namely David Ross (Leinster), Damon Ulrich (Munster), John Power (Connacht) and David Boyd (Ulster). The main emphasis of their work, initially, will be to develop structural programmes and volunteer programmes in every club.

In all of this, the IRFU's chief executive Philip Browne admitted there was a recognition that the club game needed rejuvenation.

"There are two things we are trying to do, put in the supports that are needed and think a little outside the box, and try and provide some sort of initiative to help the club game move forward. The club game has undergone change, the professional game has undergone change, and will continue to change, and that's the nature of things. So we've got to be light on our feet and move constantly to make sure that we have a strong club game. That's our aim."