The International Rugby Board has finally opened the door to professionalism, but it has also left the door open for amateurism
RUGBY: Jon Swift
YOU can’t help feeling that the International Rugby Board (IRB) has done yet again what history shows it to have done best … dither.
Certainly, the latest set of guidelines — predictably, still to be finalised — issued by the august body following their meeting in Tokyo does little to address the real issues of the new pay- for-play era which must have some delegates weeping into their gin and tonics.
In essence, the IRB has opened the path to professionalism at all levels. But they have kept a clause which protects countries “that wish to remain amateur or are less wealthy than others”. It looks very much like a question of having your cake and eating it.
Certainly, the irony of the guidelines being issued from Tokyo cannot have escaped the IRB. The Japanese may have been, along with the Ivory Coast, the whipping boys of the World Cup, but you only have to look at the flood of All Blacks — Ant Strachan, Arran Pene and Jamie Joseph are among the latest — who are on their way to the land of the rising yen to know that there is big money in Japanese rugby.
But it probably doesn’t compare with the reported R12-million the Brisbane Bulldogs offered Northern Transvaal’s Springbok scrumhalf Joost van der Westhuizen to switch to the 13-man game. Van der Westhuizen turned it down, preferring to honour his contract with the South African Rugby Football Union. A contract some R9,5-million shy of the Australian offer.
It would seem that there is equally big money in this country. But, regardless of the amounts on offer, the IRB has still not grasped the nettle.
You are either professional or not. No high-minded and undoubtedly well-intentioned words can change the fact that the game — at international and senior level, that is — has changed for all time.
And yes, that will mean hardships for countries like Western Samoa and Fiji. but then these rugby nations have served as feeder countries for their more well-endowed neighbours, New Zealand and Australia, for a number of years.
All, though, is not gloom and despondency although the flow of players from the South Sea Islands to the well-paid teams in the Antipodes will surely increase to a torrent.
One would suspect that we are likely to see more top Five Nations players arriving for the Currie Cup season too. Especially in the light of the French federation deciding on a complex system of part-time professionalism as their answer to the lure of the big buck.
The IRB has made the point that, while players are free to sell their services to the highest bidder, the considerations of national selection take preference. This seems like a statement which will be a lot easier to legislate than enforce.
What they need to do is insert a clause in every player’s contract which binds the club, province or state he plays for to pick up that player’s wage bill while he is away on national duty. This would hold especially for the wealthy nations the IRB has emphasised.
If they fail to do so, the possibility exists of any number of injuries happening just prior to selection of, for instance, a touring team which will be away for months on end and potentially cost the player in question a great deal of money.