European Rugby Champions Cup: How to Ruin a Competition

 For any rugby fans in the Northern Hemisphere, the images are iconic: The 'H' goalposts on jerseys and balls, Miles Harrison's iconic voice calling the games for Sky Sports, the dramatic updates of the quarter-final qualifiers as bonus points and points differences shifted which teams had an easy route to the finals. The old format for the tournament was imperfect, sure, but it still became the best tournament professional rugby has had. The World Cup is brilliant and will hopefully become better and more intriguing with its expansion for the next iteration, but it lacks the Heineken Cup's never-ending competitive streak. Super Rugby is mostly a fait accompli with scant exceptions. The Six Nations and the Rugby Championship suffer from their exclusivity. The Heineken Cup had it all.

But then it lost it. It rebranded in 2014 as the 'European Rugby Champions Cup' and immediately lost some of its most iconic imagery and associations. The money that has plagued most professional sports poured into rugby in the form of Toulon, the winners of the last iteration of the old competition in 2014. The symbolic transferring of the sport from its still quasi-amateur early days of professionalism, to the modern sports juggernaut that follows football and all other global sports in prizing money over everything else. The private equitisation of the modern global sports scene had embedded itself into rugby's framework.

This ball evokes so many memories for me, good and bad.

Every club in Europe raced to up wages, buy in stars from the Southern Hemisphere and race their way to the top. Some have been left behind. The slow decline of the Welsh and Scottish clubs, hopefully soon to be stymied by the reversing fortunes of Ospreys and Glasgow Warriors, has cost the competition some of its diversity that always led to intrigue. My own club, Leinster, had some dark years when the Toulons, Clermonts and Saracens of this world emerged as the top European contenders. Now, I suppose, we are the envy of most clubs, whether it is on account of the IRFU's central contract system, the concentrated wealth in and around Dublin leading to private schools acting as academies for Leinster's next generation, or the availability to complete signings like that of Jordie Barrett, a superstar from New Zealand. 

I understand why the other Irish provinces in particular would feel somewhat aggrieved at all this. Leinster's model is irreplicable elsewhere in the world, but the philosophy of the model can be replicated by other teams, leagues and countries. Instead of going down the CVC, private equity route that will, ultimately I feel, lead to heartache when they cut loose with their money, this homegrown model can lead to teams being able to compete more with each other. But that alone won't solve the problem of European rugby's premier club competition growing stagnant and losing focus and interest. That's even before a mere mention of the South African clubs bizarrely joining European leagues and knockout rugby. 

I love the teams and the rugby that they play, and I have great respect for the South African national team and what they have achieved over the last five years. But it is a logistical nightmare that leads to recent wash-outs like Lyon sending a nothing team to play the Bulls in a Round of 16 knockout match in the Champions Cup, or Leinster sending a C- team down to get hockeyed by the Lions and the Stormers respectively. Munster's successes down in South Africa - memorably winning the URC last year on the road against the Stormers - prove that teams can take it seriously, they just don't. There has been talk that the Bulls, having sent their lambs to the Northampton slaughterhouse in the quarter-finals, should be reprimanded. I disagree. They don't respect the competition. Why should they, when they have no pedigree? The same goes for Lyon. They chose to preserve their relegation fight in the Top 14 rather than send their headliners all the way to South Africa probably to be beaten anyhow. I understand this. But I still don't like it.

The international game in the northern hemisphere has rarely been in ruder health in the past twelve months, with both Ireland and France entering the previous World Cup as favourites and a resurgent Italy in this Six Nations. England's new coaching ticket and promising crop of young players will undoubtedly go on to contest the next World Cup. A thriving international game should indicate the same for the club game. While the product on offer is exceptional, with La Rochelle, Leinster and Toulouse duking it out year in, year out, that is undoubtedly ephemeral. 

Clubs can choose to respect and embrace the competition or not. That is up to them. But in a competition with so many enforced dead rubbers, why would teams put their best players out on the pitch? I'm all for a new format, but I'm a nostalgic guy, and I want the old format back. Every team has something to play for all the way through the group stages. You get to play teams home and away, meaning if they beat you on your patch you have to go back and give it to them on their patch. That's what sport is. Or rather, it's what it should be. Hopefully the EPCR stymie the declining interest in the competition and refuse to let it money-grab its way along the same path football has gone. The competition has before been great. Let's hope it returns to greatness once more. Before it's too late.