Rugby will never become a global sport.

Rugby will never become a global sport.  

New Zealand and its old-boy mates have seen to this. 

New Zealand and the old-school-tie buddies actually like it this way.  

Turkey’s don’t vote for Christmas.   

From many New Zealanders the IRB and some sort of ‘pink-gin drinking’ toffs in Ireland.  

The reality is the New Zealand Rugby Union is just as complicate in the travesty of the voting system that ostracises the majority of countries involved in the sport. 

Take the U.S for example. 

They can boast 90,000 players versus Scotland’s 40,000.        

Scotland gets two votes, from a total of 28, yet the U.S merely gets a share of the North American bloc’s single vote.   

It’s a similar situation to Samoa, ranked 7^th in the world, yet only gets a small say in the sports administration via Oceania, along with Fiji, Tonga etc. 

Neither the U.S nor Samoa get a direct say in the way the sport is run.  

Japan (ranked 15) and Canada (ranked 14) can bring their vote to the table. 

Samoa, Tonga and Fiji, all ranked above them – bring one vote between them.  

This single Oceania vote also includes Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Tahiti, Vanuatu, and American Samoa etc.     

The eight foundation (read: old school tie) members of the IRB get 16 of the 28 votes.  

But it gets worse, less equitable.  

The president and vice president of the IRB get a vote as well!   

These two administrators are always patsies for the 8 foundation members so in effect eight countries get 18 votes and the rest 10.  

8 countries from 100 have the sport by the balls, act on their best interests and not the sports.  

Changes to the Laws of the Game, the hosting rights for the Rugby World Cup and the international tours schedule are all controlled by 8 countries that do what’s best for them and not the emerging countries.

Fiji Rugby is having its century this years and N.Z Rugby is condescending sending an invitation team up there.

Don’t think this situation is going to change anytime shortly.   

To quote the IRB Chief Executive Brett Gosper “You can't, for instance, have Lithuania having the same clout at New Zealand or England - that's just not going to happen." 

People may lambast FIFA, corruption in football etc but unquestionably football is growing globally. FIFA goes out of its way to pour money into developing countries including New Zealand.  

Bahrain, Ivory Coast, Burundi, Jordan, Cayman Islands and Northern Ireland are hardly global footballing powers but all have spots on FIFA’s executive Committee.  

Contrast this to the IRB which has failed to grow the sport, looks like a colonial throw-back.  

In-fact you could argue rugby is getting weaker as Australia slips down the perch. In Australia, one of the sports traditional powerbases, rugby is now only the 4^th most watched (crowd/television) football code. The code languishes as Australians 13^th most popular organised sport participant wise.     

After seven tournaments just five countries have made the World Cup finals.  

Name one country that will seriously challenge N.Z, Aust, England, S.A and France’s dominance at the next RWC?  

Name one up & coming country that will become a force in the sport in your lifetime when nine of the top twenty nations countries; Argentina, Samoa, Fiji, Canada, Tonga, Georgia, USA, Romania and Russia still run largely amateur domestic competitions?       

Rugby in Japan and Italy is stagnating and falling further behind football.   

But why would the IRB care, when they are the self-serving mouth-pieces of the elite?  

What’s in it for England or Wales if the U.S became a force in the game?  

What does New Zealand have to gain if Samoa received the necessary finances to become serious opposition?  

Here-in lies the problem and why rugby will never be a global sport. 

 

The N.Z Public only watch international rugby because The All Black’s normally win

I got stuck at the pub last night and had to endure the first half of that dire sporting spectacle: All Blacks versus Argentina. Trust me when I got home – I didn’t waste my lifespan watching the second. I made that mistake in the AB’s game in Sydney. There is of course a natural order in The Rugby Jungle. The TAB summed this farce up nicely: The Pumas stood 1 in 100 chance of winning. After a bit of grunting and grinding things went to plan. The only teams capable of ever winning the Rugby World Cup are: NZ, Aust, SA, England and France. History shows this to be true. After seven tournaments these are the only five countries to make a final. So when second tare countries like say Ireland or Argentina play the All Blacks or Springboks they stand little to no chance of coming away with a win. The only sporting public who can derive any enjoyment out of the 4 nations Rugby Championship are the hard-core AB and Springbok fans. To date there has not been one entertaining game. What child in Argentina is going to give up football to play rugby? What AFL lover in Australia sees rugby as an easy to follow free-flowing game worthy of their attention? What neutral sports lover anywhere on this planet sees rugby as something worth sitting down to watch? But of course the N.Z public don’t care if world rugby is not growing. The N.Z public don’t care if the AB’s rivals are considered a 1 in 100 chance of winning. The N.Z public don’t even care of the standard of rugby is poor and the matches are boring ‘stop start’ to watch. All they care about is the AB’s winning.

A flash expensive Stadium is low on Christchurch’s priorities.

No politician, local or national, is brave enough to issue an exact figure on what Christchurch’s proposed covered stadium will cost. There’s something to be said in that. The broad figure bandied around is somewhere north of 300 million. That’s 100 million dollars more than Dunedin’s stadium and 200 million more than the old Lancaster Park. Let’s bear in mind at present the local Christchurch City Council is stumping up with 10 million dollars a week of extra rate-payer monies to replace damaged infrastructure e.g. roads, sewage etc. Notice I said replace. This sort is the sort of local-body investment necessary for Christchurch just to get where the city was on the 21st February 2011. Understandably rates are likely to rise significantly in the next decade with these extra costs. Therefore it stuns me to here Mayor Bob Parker state a 35,000-seat stadium is an ''essential piece of infrastructure'' when he is not replacing like with like. That’s to say: if Lancaster Park was adequate for rugby and concerts prior to 22nd Feb – then what has changed that the city needs a replacement that is three times the cost? All Stadiums lose money hand over fist, this we know by experience. Don’t give me that crap about multipliers. Being charitable Christchurch gets at best five times a year a stadium of this nature would be sold-out. Parker knows fully well the council’s subsidiary borrowed to re-build the old Lancaster Park for The World Cup and couldn’t fund that loan with bums on seats. Rate-payers bailed it out. This won’t change. If we can’t make a stadium with a nett debt of 60 million pay just two years ago then what hope do we stand when the amount spirals upwards of 150 million? We can’t ignore the temporary 21,000-seat AMI Stadium in Addington was not even full for the Crusaders' sudden-death Super 15 match against the Bulls. We all know what is happening in Dunedin and they haven’t suffered a natural disaster. Stop painting a new stadium up, ignoring the maths. Forget the feel-good benefits. This city does need a stadium - but not the grandiose one proposed. We cannot justify replacing, subsidising one artificial hockey pitch with three, one library three times bigger, QE2 three times the size, one road with three times the improvements, three times more expensive pipes etc. The flash new central AMI Stadium is a luxury Christchurch can’t currently afford.

CONFESS: THE SUPER 15 RUGBY IS A SPORTING EMBARRASSMENT

The Americanised franchised ‘McRugby’ competition with the audacity to include the name ‘super’ ended recently recently  – good riddance.

For the second year running the final was the one-sided affair you’d expect under the current format - one team being placed at a severe disadvantage, due to an obscene travel schedule.

One team from the final spent three weeks at home tucked-up in bed, the other team spent three weeks travelling literally around the globe.      

All in all the Super 15 Rugby is a global sporting laughing stock in comparison to any other first-world code you can name.

Yet local fans don’t seem to want to see it for what it is: a competition which has a primary role is to gain TV revenue for the Stalinist bodies that run the sport, a warm-up act for Internationals and a buffer against Rugby League.    

These aren’t the only reasons why Super 15 Rugby is a mickey-mouse affair, needs a complete re-vamp, re-think.   

Here are some more proverbial elephants in the room:

1.) Bonus Points; A franchise can end up in a lower position having one more games to another franchise who just happened to have scored more tries. Two teams can draw a game but one of them ends up with more points courtesy of this stupid bonus points system.

2.) Neutral Refs: Do I even need to argue why these are necessary?

3.) In-complete draw: Here’s a competition that saw this seasons two top franchises never playing each other. What credible competition would set-up a draw where some teams don’t play each other?!

4.) Home Team Advantage at Play-Offs: The sixth best franchise gets a home draw for its semi-final simply because the competition needs a franchise from that country to bump-up TV ratings. No need to include the best teams in the play-offs just a representative spread.

5.) Hideous Travel Schedule: In three weeks The Sharks have had to travel 40,000 miles to compete. That would be torture even for a holiday-maker let alone an athlete.

6.) Making-Up Numbers: A number of these franchises are there on the insistence of their respective Unions not on merit. Franchises can end up bottom or close to it season after season and offer nothing to the competition, yet never get scrapped or relegated.

7.) Cobbled together franchises: Let’s take the two provinces that make up the Highlanders, Otago and Southland, for starters. Those two unions are historic bitter rivals, as are say North Harbour and Auckland. How can they seriously go into battle together for one half of the season and then fight it out in the other half?! At one stage North Habour was with Waikato but now with Auckland. In a hundred years when this competition is buried and long & forgotten – who will remember who ‘The Chiefs’ were? Do you remember who the Central Cheetahs or The Cats were from five years ago?

8.) Night Games: TV ratings count more than having a top spectacle if you happen to support a New Zealand franchise. Regardless of TV figures the final should always be staged to produce the best football.

9.) Meaningless Franchises: If I produced a map of South Africa and asked your average Kiwi fan to place the home towns of The Sharks, Bulls etc on a map – how many would get it right? Bugger all.

10.) Byes: What value is there in a ‘bye’? 
   

Yes folks – time to confess - Super 15 is a joke! 

GAY MARRIAGE

What are the chances of you engaging in a sexual act with a member of the same sex?

To most of us the answer is: nil.

I would rather base-jump off Mount Everest, spend an intimate evening with Helen Clark before I’d get it on with a bloke.

So what are the chances of a gay person becoming straight?

Nil as well, eh?   

Why is this so hard for people to understand?

PS: On reflection I am now having second thoughts about bedding Helen Clarke before one of the U.S dive team.

IS THIS IMAGE THE NZRU DIDN’T WANT YOU TO SEE?

Imagine seeing our Olympic athletes without their distinctive black uniforms and silver ferns?

Well this almost happened, in what has to be one of the most scandalous, yet relatively unknown, controversies in our countries sporting history.

Between 2001 at 2005 the N.Z Rugby Union tried unsuccessfully to register ‘black with a silver fern’ to be the sole intellectual property of the NZRU.

They were pissed off at 'knock-off' Chinese All Black jerseys popping up in souvenir shops.

But the ramifications of a successful application could have meant our rowers, cyclists, etc having to ask permission, or pay a rights fee, to wear the black jersey with a silver fern.

If the NZRU were successful in their attempts, ultimately The All Blacks could have ended-up being the only sporting code permitted to wear our national colours!

Rugby’s arrogance, contempt for other codes doesn’t end there either.

In 2009 the International Rugby Board tried to stop volunteers from wearing a silver fern at the Rugby World Cup, as they believe the emblem belongs only to the All Blacks.