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#Post#: 11640--------------------------------------------------
CVC deal is coming - and ringfencing
DIR By: Blucherquin
Date: December 4, 2018, 3:01 am
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Owen Slot in the times
So here we are, nine rounds into this season’s Gallagher
Premiership, and we have the tightest, most extraordinary
relegation contest since the leagues began. Suck it up and enjoy
it for all it is worth, because it may just be that fans of the
English Premiership will never get anything like it again.
With the most sublime irony, the clubs are in the process of
giving the watching public a competition that is more
compellingly desperate and broadly nerve-racking than anything
they have seen before, and yet they are simultaneously
attempting to legislate so that nothing like this can ever
happen again.
Newcastle Falcons are bottom. The next six clubs are only four
points or fewer ahead. Any one of these could be relegated and
there are big names in there: Bath, Bristol Bears, Leicester
Tigers, Worcester Warriors, Northampton Saints and Sale Sharks.
Ahead of them, but only by five points, are Wasps and
Harlequins; it is unlikely but not completely unfeasible that
one of those could go too.
Year after year, the Premiership’s relegation battle has been an
irrelevance, a non-event; not so much a battle as a case of the
bottom club conceding defeat — and sometimes by Christmas. So
this time, now that over half of the league are in danger of
relegation, what do they do? They try to scrap relegation
altogether.
It is not entirely clear how cynical rugby fans need to be here.
However, it is not exactly a coincidence that the latest push to
ring-fence the Premiership has come at the very time when the
majority of its members have an immediate interest in ensuring
that it happens.
Traditionally scrapping promotion and relegation — and it is
pretty much an annual event with no conclusion — there are two
or three clubs who are terrified of relegation and the rest take
a wider, more corporate view, asking questions such as: would
ring-fencing improve the product? Would it help us grow? Would
it prevent us from another embarrassing eyesore such as London
Welsh?
The reason why the clubs may reach a conclusion this time is
that the number of the terrified is not two or three but seven
or eight. This year, the sole reason that ring-fencing was not
whistled through was the 13th team. There are 13 shareholders
and yet Premier Rugby Limited (PRL) wants it to be 12. All sorts
of enterprising methods were concocted to get shot of the 13th
team — probably London Irish — and yet the other 12 took their
fingers off the trigger. They did not have the stomach to kill
off one of their own.
Now though, the landscape is changing and they do not feel so
keenly the need to do so. The deal with CVC Capital Partners is
likely to be confirmed next Tuesday. CVC is set to buy a
shareholding of 30 per cent of PRL for about £240 million, for
all those clubs that were making losses and scrapping for every
share of every deal, there is a lot more to share around.
Two questions: will it happen? Should it happen?
Will it? Yes, at some point it now seems inevitable. Some clubs
want it right now, to stop anyone being relegated in May,
although this just seems plain hopeful. Any such change has to
be given RFU approval and it seems unlikely that the governing
body will change the rules mid-season. A more likely outcome is
that this season will be the last for relegation and then, next
season, the club that is top of the Championship will go up and
pull the trap door up behind them.
Imagine next season in the Championship, then. Imagine that,
say, Bath have been relegated. The games between them and
Premiership wannabes Ealing Trailfinders would be epic. Should
it happen? Only if the trap door is opened in another four or
five years’ time.
The fact is that the 13 teams are pretty much ring-fenced
already; the only difference is that the 13th team have to spend
a season cutting costs and haemorrhaging cash in the
Championship. No one else gets close.
London Irish — currently the 13th team — have lost only one game
this season, which was to Jersey Reds, who make annual losses of
£300,000, who had to sell their ground two years ago to survive
and who were last week given a £150,000 grant by the island
government to help them see out the season. That is not a
business fit for the Premiership.
Nor is Ealing’s — at least not yet. They do not have a ground
fit for the Premiership and the average home crowd is less than
1,000.
The gap between Premiership clubs now and those in the
Championship has grown so vast that the notion that another team
could “do an Exeter” has become more fanciful than romantic.
Exeter Chiefs had to make a huge leap to survive; the chasm is
now infinitely wider.
If you put up the ring-fence for, say, four years and then
reopen it, you do not kill ambition. Instead you allow Jersey
the time to refinance and Ealing to build a stadium and a crowd.
Likewise Cornish Pirates. Far better to encourage these clubs to
build, so they have a possibility of being able to survive in
the top flight and contribute to it, like Exeter, rather than
the present model, which encourages them to spend beyond their
means, to buy players they cannot afford, like London Welsh.
If you extract the 13th team from the Championship then, hey
presto, the Championship itself may become a decent competition
too. At present it is a non-event: the 13th team wins, the rest
just squabble over the order below and their debts grow in the
process. In their most recent accounts, of the 12 Championship
clubs, Richmond were the only club not operating at a loss.
The one real drawback to ring-fencing is the element that is so
compelling right now: this extraordinary relegation battle that
makes the bottom half of the Premiership so competitive. The
Premiership would have to try and make amends in order to
prevent bottom-of the-table dead rubbers. It could, for
instance, make the play-offs an eight-team event, not four.
Is that the ideal solution? No. Because there isn’t one. If you
had a blank sheet of paper, and could design professional club
rugby from scratch, it would look nothing like this. It would
not have 12 teams or 13, it would probably have eight. And there
would be a better geographical spread.
Dream on. Professional rugby in England was born out of amateur
rugby; it is often magnificent, clearly imperfect. It has
evolved incredibly slowly. Ring-fencing will change it and,
largely, for the better. It may have been born from fear, but it
is coming.
#Post#: 11643--------------------------------------------------
Re: CVC deal is coming - and ringfencing
DIR By: deadlyfrom5yardsout
Date: December 4, 2018, 3:20 am
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I fear that if it becomes clear you are not going to win the
league you will rest everybody and throw all your resources at
the Cup competitions.
#Post#: 11646--------------------------------------------------
Re: CVC deal is coming - and ringfencing
DIR By: Rocker
Date: December 4, 2018, 4:06 am
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To be honest, when there is basically only 1 team that could
realistically come up and make any sort of a fist of it, and
they only won 2 games all last season (all be it both against
us), you do have to wonder quite what the point is. I do think
that perhaps relegation maybe every 3 or 4 years rather than
annual might be a better plan.
#Post#: 11653--------------------------------------------------
Re: CVC deal is coming - and ringfencing
DIR By: honkytonk
Date: December 4, 2018, 4:34 am
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Yeah, as long as there is scope for a side to come up at some
point. Ealing are working hard to get into a position to be a
prem side, and with their new stadium i expect Pirates may fancy
a crack as well
#Post#: 11654--------------------------------------------------
Re: CVC deal is coming - and ringfencing
DIR By: never sleep
Date: December 4, 2018, 4:35 am
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I think that there is an appetite for Rugby Union in Yorkshire.
Although they are not doing well this season, Leeds/Yorkshire
Carnegie were finalists in the Championship 2 years ago and have
won 3 times.
Rotherham Titans have won 3 times (although they have since been
relegated)
Doncaster Knights seem to do okay. They have a nice new ground
that was recently used for an England ladies international.
Otley has also a long tradition of rugby and even hosted games
during the 1991 world cup.
I think that if one of these teams (basically Leeds or Donny)
was to get into the Prem, then they could grow the fan base to
go with it.
Donny would be my preference as:
- they could probably get fans from Rotherham
- they have an average rugby league team (they are in the 3rd
tier of RL)
- they have an everage football team (thet in the the 3rd tier
as well)
- they have good transport links - on train lines from
Sheffield, Hull and Leeds. and are on A1(M) and M18 motorways
and close to M62 and are close to other big towns in South Yorks
(e.g. Barsley, Pontefract)
therefore, they could pick up people who like RU in a
predominantly RL region
#Post#: 11658--------------------------------------------------
Re: CVC deal is coming - and ringfencing
DIR By: A222Quin
Date: December 4, 2018, 5:21 am
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The Championship is odd in the sense that there are a number of
teams falling into a variety of categories. You have those who
actively want to be in the premiership and have the
infrastructure to support it e.g Irish. Those who want to be in
the Premiership but don't yet but are working towards it e.g.
Ealing and Pirates plus a number who have some of the
infrastructure but don't want to go up e.g. Bedford.
The greatest argument against Ringfencing is Exeter and the
greatest argument for is London Welsh but aside from that, I
don't see many teams that are capable of surviving in the Prem.
#Post#: 11659--------------------------------------------------
Re: CVC deal is coming - and ringfencing
DIR By: deadlyfrom5yardsout
Date: December 4, 2018, 5:24 am
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How about the criteria being that in future if you win the
Championship twice in a row that you were then offered a play
off against the bottom side in the Prem?
#Post#: 11662--------------------------------------------------
Re: CVC deal is coming - and ringfencing
DIR By: Fearless Fred
Date: December 4, 2018, 5:28 am
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Trying to arrange a 13-team competition would be a nightmare.
You could do it with 14 teams (LI and Yorkshire seem the best
long-term candidates). You'd have to drop the Cup competition.
Maybe run it like the Pro14 with 2 conferences rather than the
Top14 model where it starts in August & runs through to early
July. You'd have to re-negotiate what happens regarding European
competitions as well.
I'd hate to see the drawbridge permanently raised, I can see
some logic in the idea of making it a more business-like
decision on future teams joining the Top level. Hell, give it
ten years for a team like Pirates or Ealing to build their base
& financials, and invite them in then, expanding further to 16
teams, running in a conference system.
#Post#: 11663--------------------------------------------------
Re: CVC deal is coming - and ringfencing
DIR By: never sleep
Date: December 4, 2018, 5:31 am
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I would like the Prem to go up to 14 teams and lose the Prem cup
competition. It would be nice to get some fresh teams in the
competition.
My view is to make it 14 teams and then initially
promote/relegate every few years. This gives a promoted team
the opportunity to actually be competitive.
Long term though, the place where the work needs to be done is
in the Championship. France have 16 fully professional teams in
the D2. And a team needs to prove that they are sustainable
before being promoted. Basically, the auditors go in before
they reach the playoffs and decide. But having a strong 2nd
division makes the 1st division a better product.
#Post#: 11667--------------------------------------------------
Re: CVC deal is coming - and ringfencing
DIR By: InsertQuinsPunHere
Date: December 4, 2018, 6:31 am
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--- Quote from: never sleep link ---
>
> ... But having a strong 2nd division makes the 1st division a
better product.
>
--- End Quote ---
Yes, I agree.
I would prefer no ring-fencing, although I can see something
needs to change.
--- Quote from: Blucherquin link ---
>
> Owen Slot in the times
> ...
>
> London Irish — currently the 13th team — have lost only one
game this season, which was to Jersey Reds, who make annual
losses of £300,000, who had to sell their ground two years ago
to survive and who were last week given a £150,000 grant by the
island government to help them see out the season. That is not a
business fit for the Premiership.
>
> ...
>
--- End Quote ---
Yeah, because all the Premiership teams make huge profits?!
(emphasis in quote my own)
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