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Martin Devlin: World Rugby needs to be scrapped

Author
Newstalk ZB,
Publish Date
Thu, 7 May 2020, 1:55PM

Martin Devlin: World Rugby needs to be scrapped

Author
Newstalk ZB,
Publish Date
Thu, 7 May 2020, 1:55PM

World Rugby you are a dying old wildebeest that needs to be buried.

The future of the sport is to park this old dinosaur and seize independent control of our team, our fixture list & our finances. And I do believe that NZR have the people, the means and the desire to eventually make this happen.

If WR was a collection of countries all operating under the same centrally controlled player contract systems then it might be relevant.

But it isn't and therefore it's not. As the former AB coach Sir Steve Hansen says, "they can't even organise the rules properly, how does anyone expect them to do the rest"? And, of course, he's right.

WR has a test match schedule. And good on them. But that was yesterday.

Today and tomorrow will see the game's leading nations go independent and co-ordinate their own fixture lists. honestly would the game be any poorer for  ditching these meaningless, boring July mini-series? Apart from those and the annual Northern Hemisphere tour there is no schedule.

The Lions are their own entity, WR having no part or profit from that. The English and French clubs own all their players, WR has no part of that either. Which is why when France come here in July half their squad only arrives in time for the second test because they're delayed playing club finals. And WR has zero part of that too.

We need to seize total financial control of what we already are, the sport's most well-known, globally -loved, revenue  earning brand.

I'm talking about owning the means of production. And there's no good reason for it not to happen, for us not to embrace it, for us not to capitalise on the opportunities created by CV19 and actualise it. 

WR is the local tennis club committee that organises the end of year tournie. They don't run the game. There are those in official positions that might think they do, but they don't. What they do is run a (mostly) pretty good tournament. The international future of rugby will see private funding, private investment, our own touring schedules organised union to union, bypassing the current admin which will run the RWC then shut up for the next four years and go away.

The WR in World Rugby increasingly stands for What Relevance. It's a question they don't want to answer because it's an answer that questions everything about them.

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