After 23 weeks in limbo, rugby is emerging blinking into the summer sunlight and the next two months of the Premiership are crucial to the sport’s futurePeople used to argue that class is permanent and form only temporary. Not in these unprecedented stop-go days of English rugby. As the Premiership season re-emerges blinking into the bright summer sunlight, woe betide any ambitious clubs who respond slowly to this weekend’s starting pistol after 23 weeks in limbo.Because the traditional domestic marathon is suddenly a gut-busting sprint, complete with unfamiliar midweek games, as the league looks to make up for lost time and, more pertinently, precious television income. Nine rounds, plus the play-offs, with everything settled by late October. An element of...
The unprecedented amount of rugby set to be played in the next 12 months is going to take a huge physical toll on playersThe fixtures for the Premiership’s restart give better clarity to the shape of the rugby calendar for the foreseeable future. We may not know who England will be playing in the autumn yet - and there is always the threat of a Covid-19 spike - but a second wave notwithstanding, the next year will bring a glut of top-level rugby.Restarting in mid-August will mean almost exactly 12 months of non-stop rugby. Great for fans, clubs and unions who have been so badly hit financially. Good for the sponsors, all kinds of stakeholders and for the players, who...
Confusion over contracts, scheduling and the return to training have all added up to create one big mess and the Premiership is struggling to deal with itIf you were to highlight the biggest problem in English club rugby at the moment you would have plenty to choose from. From the arbitrary deadline given to players to sign new contracts with their clubs to the jostling by unions over who has priority in the autumn, it is fair to say that 15 August – the Premiership’s provisional restart date – feels a long way away.In every instance, however, there has been the common problem of communication – or lack of it. Initially the narrative over wage cuts was that the players...
Lord Myners’ salary cap report has drawn criticism but this is the time to control costs and reset business ethicsPaul Myners well knows the devastation a financial crisis can cause. He was the finances services secretary to the Treasury when the world recession hit in 2008 and, as he was drawing up his report on the Premiership’s salary cap, sport went into lockdown because of the coronavirus pandemic. He laced his findings with reminders to a business that was already struggling to become sustainable with timely warnings. “Their long-term financial viability was not assured before this moment,” he said of the Premiership clubs. “It is far less so now.”Lord Myners viewed the cap as a safety valve against unsustainable losses...
Clinging to the concept of survival of the fittest could bring the game to its knees, even in areas once thought to be strongestFuture historians will pinpoint the past few days as the moment global rugby union came face to face with stark reality. Like an iceberg few imagined would ever melt, huge cracks and fissures are threatening to widen and cause a ripple effect even in places where the sport is theoretically supposed to be strongest.It is not so much the inevitable postponement of all this July’s Tests, with the severe financial pain that entails, that is the giveaway. Nor is it the sight of players still jogging around in small groups, uncertain when the government will permit a...