The Ligue Nationale de Rugby's deal – double the previous one – will increase the Top 14 clubs' ability to attract top players
*WORLD'S RICHEST LEAGUE SIGNS LUCRATIVE DEAL*
"The most important agreement for club competition in world rugby" were the words used by the Ligue Nationale de Rugby (LNR) to describe the television deal for the Top 14 concluded with Canal+ this week. It works out at a few pounds under £60m a year, a million shy of the Welsh Rugby Union's turnover last year and more than that of the Irish and Scottish unions.
The richest league in the world will become even better off and, as the world of football shows, there is a direct correlation between the value of television contracts and the salaries of leading players. When has a top club used a deal to drop wages as a percentage of turnover?
The French deal, which is more than double the current one, was expected to be even higher but the LNR last week changed its mind about putting the contract out to tender, despite considerable interest from a Qatar-based network, after a legal threat by Canal+.
The French deal compares to the £152m over four years secured by Premiership Rugby with BT Sport for English rugby's top flight – a chunk of which is for a cross-border tournament – and the near-£10m a year the RaboDirect Pro 12 unions have secured for the rights to their league, £5.5m from Sky, who have first pick every round, £3.2m from BBC Wales, £900,000 from Ireland, which seems pitiful given the strength of three of their provinces, and some £140,000 from Scotland.
Italy have been putting £3m a year into the Pro12 as a condition of membership, but from next season want to be treated as an equal partner. They have yet to commit to remaining in the league, talking about setting up an eight-team domestic tournament instead and investing their money in that, but such a move would alarm the International Rugby Board about Italy's viability in the Six Nations.
This weekend sees the final group matches in the Heineken Cup: six of the eight quarter-finalists have already been decided, with Saracens and Leinster needing to win at home to claim the final two positions. If they do prevail, the last eight will be made up of three teams from France, three from Ireland and two from England.
The three countries provided last season's quarter-finalists with a similar split, Harlequins qualifying but not Leinster while Montpellier were one of France's representatives, replaced this year by Toulouse. Otherwise, Ulster, Munster, Toulon, Clermont Auvergne, Leicester and, conditionally, Saracens remain.
Assuming Saracens – who face a Connacht side that have won their two matches on the road in this season's Heineken Cup – and Leinster win, it would mean that this decade France have provided 16 quarter-finalists, Ireland 12, England nine, Wales two and Scotland one.
The Heineken Cup has, in effect, become a three-nation tournament and there is a danger, as talks about a European tournament for next season continue to be held off-stage, that in the future that number will be reduced by one. Part of the reason for the French and English clubs serving notice on European Rugby Cup Ltd last year was they felt they were subsidising the Celtic nations and Italy, all of whom took out more from the tournament than they put in.
It was an argument based on the relative values of the six nations for broadcasters and sponsors; as the most populous countries, England and France were the magnets, something that is reflected in the commercial value of the three leagues, but without the performances of Ireland's provinces, what is the Heineken Cup worth in a rugby sense?
There is a real danger of that happening under a new European accord. There are various reasons why negotiations have not progressed far in the time since the French and English clubs, and the FFR, served notice on ERC, but in recent months the major obstacles have been who governs the tournament and whether clubs should be given the power to negotiate television and sponsorship deals.
Aside of the issue of whether BT or Sky would televise the tournament, the differences in negotiating positions should not be enough to halt one of the success stories in European rugby in the professional era. The unions are not being asked to give up organisational control, and allowing clubs to negotiate commercial deals would not break IRB regulations.
The biggest concern for the RaboDirect unions should be a principle they conceded last year: that as well as qualification for the Heineken Cup from all three leagues being meritocratic, so the financial spoils should be divided equally among the three leagues.
The English and French clubs last year promised that they would be able to deliver such an increase in turnover that even though their percentage share of the money would fall, all the Pro 12 unions would be better off. The six nations shared nearly €46m last year from Europe, shared almost equally between the RaboDirect countries and England and France once merit money was included.
The Pro 12 countries received €23m. To achieve that figure under an equal share policy, the turnover, bearing in mind operating costs last year were nearly €7m, would need to increase from €52.7m to more than €76m. Sharing the €46m last year would have seen the Rabo countries suffer a cut in income of some 30%.
Wales, and now Ireland, are already struggling to hold on to players, with French clubs already able to offer salaries no one else can match. Jonathan Davies and Ian Evans are bound for the Top 14 next season with Jamie Heaslip and Sean O'Brien considering offers.
If their teams become better off but relatively worse off in a new Europe, Wales and Ireland will surely see more players leave. While they have argued hard about governance and the right of unions to be in control of everything, agreeing to a financial split of one-third each was a mistake: while the English and French will see income rise by, under their figures, nigh on 100%, the Rabo sides will struggle to make double figures.
A better balance needs to be struck because, while France and England have the chimney pots, the European Cup has to be more than an Anglo-French affair for it to make commercial sense. It is the financial model that should cause the Celts and Italy the greatest concern, not who talks to backers.
*HEINEKEN CUP LOOKS SAFE FOR ANOTHER SEASON*
The French Rugby Federation seems to have accepted that a transitional year for the Heineken Cup next season sounded a good idea at the time but would risk the English clubs and Welsh regions going it alone.
Officials from the FFR and the Rugby Football Union met the IRB chairman, Bernard Lapasset, and the chief executive, Brett Gosper, in Paris this week to find a way of solving the problem that has become the European Cup.
The FFR chairman Pierre Camou had wanted the debate over the Heineken Cup to be tied into discussions about a change in the way the game in Europe is governed, but seems to have accepted that the latter will take more than 18 months to sort out.
The next 10 days will be crucial. The four Welsh regions have set a deadline for the end of this month for the WRU to negotiate a participation agreement that makes commercial sense to sign or they will look to set up an Anglo-Welsh league with the Premiership, prepared to go to court for the right to do so.
The leading figures from Regional Rugby Wales met with the WRU on Wednesday to discuss a document of more than 200 pages drawn up by the union last week after the regions failed to meet a December 31 deadline to continue the participation agreement they signed in 2009 for another five years.
The regions issued a statement which ran: "Meetings are currently taking place between Regional Rugby Wales executives and the WRU to discuss the new Rugby Services Agreement document presented to the regions by the WRU.
"The regions are currently considering the contents of the document in detail and will be in active discussion with the WRU, including requesting further details, clarity and confirmation on a number of points raised in the proposals to see if there is any common ground.
"Throughout the past two years, the Welsh regions have been trying pragmatically to discuss the previous participation agreement and at all times made it clear, either as part of the PWC report and then the PRGB, that their wish is to work collaboratively with the WRU to progress a sustainable and competitive game in Wales.
"While the regions continue to actively discuss each element of the detailed operational document proposed by the WRU, the only defined competition and committed revenue available to the regions at this time remains the Rugby Champions Cup.
"The regions remain committed to the implementation of the Rugby Champions Cup, which will provide an additional £12m in committed revenues to Welsh rugby over the next three years.
"The regions have now been assured the WRU will seek to resolve the fundamental issues of defining and committing league and cup competitions and revenues by the end of this month.
"We are happy to discuss operational details within a potential agreement, but any detail is meaningless without WRU fulfilling their primary obligation of defining the structure of the competitions the agreement applies to and committing to the revenues generated.
"The WRU assure us they will confirm these core elements within this month, allowing the regions to run their businesses at the same time as finalising any operational detail within a joint agreement."
The words are bullish, referring to the Rugby Champions Cup, the tournament drawn up by the English and French clubs in the autumn as a replacement for the Heineken Cup and which is anathema to the WRU, and putting the WRU on the back foot.
The regions have the safety net of the Anglo-Welsh league, backed by BT Sport, but the extra £1m for them each in the Rugby Champions Cup, and whatever Europe looks like next season it will surely be the Heineken Cup, is only likely to materialise if they can persuade the WRU to change the way the Pro 12 divides the spoils from Europe from the current four equal ways, between countries, to 12, something that would also benefit Ireland at the expense of Scotland and Italy, who are both believed to be thinking about setting up a third professional side.
*FIJIANS HAVE RUN-IN WITH IRB*
The Flying Fijians have winged their way into a dispute with the International Rugby Board, which this month announced it was suspending its funding to the local union which is looking at ways of making good a financial loss.
The Fijian Rugby Union issued a long statement through a newspaper, which takes some wading through.
The IRB, which uses money generated by World Cups to offer the Pacific islands financial and practical support to help them remain competitive and continue developing young players, wanted to have an interim director on the FRU to protect its interests during the restructuring.
The union said no and has committed to clearing its debts by May. It has been given an assurance by the IRB that Fiji will continue to play on the international sevens circuit, but qualification for next year's World Cup still has to be secured.
*BRISTOL RAID WELSH REGIONS*
The Welsh regions have a threat closer to home than money-soaked clubs in the Top 14: Bristol, gearing up for a return to the Premiership, are stocking up on veterans.
They already have the former Wales outside-half Nicky Robinson on their books and he will be joined in 2005 by Dwayne Peel, who toured New Zealand with the 2005 Lions.
Reports in Wales this week say Ospreys' back rower and former national captain, Ryan Jones, has been offered a £200,000 a year deal by Bristol, a few months shy of his 33rd birthday.
The former Ospreys' head coach, Sean Holley, is a member of the Bristol management team. Jones, who has led his country 33 times, is in the current Wales squad and his prospects of playing in next year's World Cup will weigh heavily in his decision with Newport Gwent Dragons also ready to make him an offer.
*STILL WANT MORE?*
On the evidence to date in the Heineken Cup, a final four of the French sides Toulouse, Toulon and Clermont Auvergne plus Leicester would not be a massive shock, writes Robert Kitson.
Wales wing George North talks to Donald McRae about how 2014 may struggle to live up to last year, when he experienced the rare high of a successful Lions tour. Reported by guardian.co.uk 13 hours ago.
*WORLD'S RICHEST LEAGUE SIGNS LUCRATIVE DEAL*
"The most important agreement for club competition in world rugby" were the words used by the Ligue Nationale de Rugby (LNR) to describe the television deal for the Top 14 concluded with Canal+ this week. It works out at a few pounds under £60m a year, a million shy of the Welsh Rugby Union's turnover last year and more than that of the Irish and Scottish unions.
The richest league in the world will become even better off and, as the world of football shows, there is a direct correlation between the value of television contracts and the salaries of leading players. When has a top club used a deal to drop wages as a percentage of turnover?
The French deal, which is more than double the current one, was expected to be even higher but the LNR last week changed its mind about putting the contract out to tender, despite considerable interest from a Qatar-based network, after a legal threat by Canal+.
The French deal compares to the £152m over four years secured by Premiership Rugby with BT Sport for English rugby's top flight – a chunk of which is for a cross-border tournament – and the near-£10m a year the RaboDirect Pro 12 unions have secured for the rights to their league, £5.5m from Sky, who have first pick every round, £3.2m from BBC Wales, £900,000 from Ireland, which seems pitiful given the strength of three of their provinces, and some £140,000 from Scotland.
Italy have been putting £3m a year into the Pro12 as a condition of membership, but from next season want to be treated as an equal partner. They have yet to commit to remaining in the league, talking about setting up an eight-team domestic tournament instead and investing their money in that, but such a move would alarm the International Rugby Board about Italy's viability in the Six Nations.
This weekend sees the final group matches in the Heineken Cup: six of the eight quarter-finalists have already been decided, with Saracens and Leinster needing to win at home to claim the final two positions. If they do prevail, the last eight will be made up of three teams from France, three from Ireland and two from England.
The three countries provided last season's quarter-finalists with a similar split, Harlequins qualifying but not Leinster while Montpellier were one of France's representatives, replaced this year by Toulouse. Otherwise, Ulster, Munster, Toulon, Clermont Auvergne, Leicester and, conditionally, Saracens remain.
Assuming Saracens – who face a Connacht side that have won their two matches on the road in this season's Heineken Cup – and Leinster win, it would mean that this decade France have provided 16 quarter-finalists, Ireland 12, England nine, Wales two and Scotland one.
The Heineken Cup has, in effect, become a three-nation tournament and there is a danger, as talks about a European tournament for next season continue to be held off-stage, that in the future that number will be reduced by one. Part of the reason for the French and English clubs serving notice on European Rugby Cup Ltd last year was they felt they were subsidising the Celtic nations and Italy, all of whom took out more from the tournament than they put in.
It was an argument based on the relative values of the six nations for broadcasters and sponsors; as the most populous countries, England and France were the magnets, something that is reflected in the commercial value of the three leagues, but without the performances of Ireland's provinces, what is the Heineken Cup worth in a rugby sense?
There is a real danger of that happening under a new European accord. There are various reasons why negotiations have not progressed far in the time since the French and English clubs, and the FFR, served notice on ERC, but in recent months the major obstacles have been who governs the tournament and whether clubs should be given the power to negotiate television and sponsorship deals.
Aside of the issue of whether BT or Sky would televise the tournament, the differences in negotiating positions should not be enough to halt one of the success stories in European rugby in the professional era. The unions are not being asked to give up organisational control, and allowing clubs to negotiate commercial deals would not break IRB regulations.
The biggest concern for the RaboDirect unions should be a principle they conceded last year: that as well as qualification for the Heineken Cup from all three leagues being meritocratic, so the financial spoils should be divided equally among the three leagues.
The English and French clubs last year promised that they would be able to deliver such an increase in turnover that even though their percentage share of the money would fall, all the Pro 12 unions would be better off. The six nations shared nearly €46m last year from Europe, shared almost equally between the RaboDirect countries and England and France once merit money was included.
The Pro 12 countries received €23m. To achieve that figure under an equal share policy, the turnover, bearing in mind operating costs last year were nearly €7m, would need to increase from €52.7m to more than €76m. Sharing the €46m last year would have seen the Rabo countries suffer a cut in income of some 30%.
Wales, and now Ireland, are already struggling to hold on to players, with French clubs already able to offer salaries no one else can match. Jonathan Davies and Ian Evans are bound for the Top 14 next season with Jamie Heaslip and Sean O'Brien considering offers.
If their teams become better off but relatively worse off in a new Europe, Wales and Ireland will surely see more players leave. While they have argued hard about governance and the right of unions to be in control of everything, agreeing to a financial split of one-third each was a mistake: while the English and French will see income rise by, under their figures, nigh on 100%, the Rabo sides will struggle to make double figures.
A better balance needs to be struck because, while France and England have the chimney pots, the European Cup has to be more than an Anglo-French affair for it to make commercial sense. It is the financial model that should cause the Celts and Italy the greatest concern, not who talks to backers.
*HEINEKEN CUP LOOKS SAFE FOR ANOTHER SEASON*
The French Rugby Federation seems to have accepted that a transitional year for the Heineken Cup next season sounded a good idea at the time but would risk the English clubs and Welsh regions going it alone.
Officials from the FFR and the Rugby Football Union met the IRB chairman, Bernard Lapasset, and the chief executive, Brett Gosper, in Paris this week to find a way of solving the problem that has become the European Cup.
The FFR chairman Pierre Camou had wanted the debate over the Heineken Cup to be tied into discussions about a change in the way the game in Europe is governed, but seems to have accepted that the latter will take more than 18 months to sort out.
The next 10 days will be crucial. The four Welsh regions have set a deadline for the end of this month for the WRU to negotiate a participation agreement that makes commercial sense to sign or they will look to set up an Anglo-Welsh league with the Premiership, prepared to go to court for the right to do so.
The leading figures from Regional Rugby Wales met with the WRU on Wednesday to discuss a document of more than 200 pages drawn up by the union last week after the regions failed to meet a December 31 deadline to continue the participation agreement they signed in 2009 for another five years.
The regions issued a statement which ran: "Meetings are currently taking place between Regional Rugby Wales executives and the WRU to discuss the new Rugby Services Agreement document presented to the regions by the WRU.
"The regions are currently considering the contents of the document in detail and will be in active discussion with the WRU, including requesting further details, clarity and confirmation on a number of points raised in the proposals to see if there is any common ground.
"Throughout the past two years, the Welsh regions have been trying pragmatically to discuss the previous participation agreement and at all times made it clear, either as part of the PWC report and then the PRGB, that their wish is to work collaboratively with the WRU to progress a sustainable and competitive game in Wales.
"While the regions continue to actively discuss each element of the detailed operational document proposed by the WRU, the only defined competition and committed revenue available to the regions at this time remains the Rugby Champions Cup.
"The regions remain committed to the implementation of the Rugby Champions Cup, which will provide an additional £12m in committed revenues to Welsh rugby over the next three years.
"The regions have now been assured the WRU will seek to resolve the fundamental issues of defining and committing league and cup competitions and revenues by the end of this month.
"We are happy to discuss operational details within a potential agreement, but any detail is meaningless without WRU fulfilling their primary obligation of defining the structure of the competitions the agreement applies to and committing to the revenues generated.
"The WRU assure us they will confirm these core elements within this month, allowing the regions to run their businesses at the same time as finalising any operational detail within a joint agreement."
The words are bullish, referring to the Rugby Champions Cup, the tournament drawn up by the English and French clubs in the autumn as a replacement for the Heineken Cup and which is anathema to the WRU, and putting the WRU on the back foot.
The regions have the safety net of the Anglo-Welsh league, backed by BT Sport, but the extra £1m for them each in the Rugby Champions Cup, and whatever Europe looks like next season it will surely be the Heineken Cup, is only likely to materialise if they can persuade the WRU to change the way the Pro 12 divides the spoils from Europe from the current four equal ways, between countries, to 12, something that would also benefit Ireland at the expense of Scotland and Italy, who are both believed to be thinking about setting up a third professional side.
*FIJIANS HAVE RUN-IN WITH IRB*
The Flying Fijians have winged their way into a dispute with the International Rugby Board, which this month announced it was suspending its funding to the local union which is looking at ways of making good a financial loss.
The Fijian Rugby Union issued a long statement through a newspaper, which takes some wading through.
The IRB, which uses money generated by World Cups to offer the Pacific islands financial and practical support to help them remain competitive and continue developing young players, wanted to have an interim director on the FRU to protect its interests during the restructuring.
The union said no and has committed to clearing its debts by May. It has been given an assurance by the IRB that Fiji will continue to play on the international sevens circuit, but qualification for next year's World Cup still has to be secured.
*BRISTOL RAID WELSH REGIONS*
The Welsh regions have a threat closer to home than money-soaked clubs in the Top 14: Bristol, gearing up for a return to the Premiership, are stocking up on veterans.
They already have the former Wales outside-half Nicky Robinson on their books and he will be joined in 2005 by Dwayne Peel, who toured New Zealand with the 2005 Lions.
Reports in Wales this week say Ospreys' back rower and former national captain, Ryan Jones, has been offered a £200,000 a year deal by Bristol, a few months shy of his 33rd birthday.
The former Ospreys' head coach, Sean Holley, is a member of the Bristol management team. Jones, who has led his country 33 times, is in the current Wales squad and his prospects of playing in next year's World Cup will weigh heavily in his decision with Newport Gwent Dragons also ready to make him an offer.
*STILL WANT MORE?*
On the evidence to date in the Heineken Cup, a final four of the French sides Toulouse, Toulon and Clermont Auvergne plus Leicester would not be a massive shock, writes Robert Kitson.
Wales wing George North talks to Donald McRae about how 2014 may struggle to live up to last year, when he experienced the rare high of a successful Lions tour. Reported by guardian.co.uk 13 hours ago.