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. 

 

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! 

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.