Premier Rugby clarify Heineken targets

Commercial re-structuring the priority for English clubs

Premier Rugby has reacted with some surprise to the comments of French league president Serge Blanco, who on Monday was reported to have threatened a boycott of the 2007/8 Heineken Cup.

The company which represents England's top-flight clubs, along with French counterparts the Ligue National de Rugby (LNR), has long advocated a financial re-structuring of the European competition, in order to deliver maximum possible revenue to the clubs participating.

The idea revolves around letting the two organisations - Premier Rugby and LNR - effectively take commercial and organisational control of the competition rather than the Board which has controlled it since the Paris Accord.

The plans have met with stiff resistance from the Celtic nations, who see the threats as twofold.

Firstly, the Celts believe they will be squeezed out of the major revenue streams under such an organisation, further exacerbating the financial and commercial gap between Celtic regions and French and English club teams.

Secondly, they see an increased financial evolution of the Heineken Cup as a commercial threat to the existence of a struggling Celtic League, which is still without a sponsor.

However, the Welsh Rugby Union made its own feelings known on the need for extra revenue by falling in with the Powergen Cup - an extra burden on a horribly over-crowded fixture list.

There is little doubt that the Heineken Cup is the way forward, but there is much concern over letting English and French club bodies take control of the competition.

All the home unions have so far blocked the moves to let a fully commercial body take over the tournament, and crucially, the Celtic unions have no equivalent of Premier Rugby to negociated on behalf of the provinces or regions.

Premier Rugby spokesman Simon Lewis explained to this publication on Monday exactly what the company wanted from the tournament restructure.

"We want to see the tournament restructured commercially," he said.

"We feel it should be the best tournament there is, and should be treated as such. We do not want to take it over, we simply want the tournament to make more money, for all the teams concerned, so that everybody can get the same cut of a much bigger pie."

The Celtic unions are concerned that while they would get more money, the English and French teams would get double the increase that the Celtic provinces would get, thus increasing the financial gap - and therefore the gulf in playing power, commercial power, and subsequently, success between them all. Therefore the Celtic provinces have stood behind their unions thus far.

"In the financial sense we want the Board to be more accountable to the clubs rather than to the unions. It is the clubs who are losing financial opportunities because of the way the tournament is run currently," said Lewis.

"If it were just the clubs on the Board, there would not be the financial restrictions there are now. If the RFU relinquished their responsibility on the ERC Board, clubs in the tournament would have more of a chance to make money.

"The Guinness Premiership has many sponsors as well as Guinness, but the Heineken Cup has only Heineken and the television rights for example. There is room for several sub-sponsors, but such actions are restricted by the unions."

Blanco's threat of a boycott - which some reports have also suggested could be a course of action taken by the English clubs in 2007/8 - was not an item on Premier Rugby's agenda, and nor was the issue of Celtic qualification.

In the past, there was a suggestion that qualification from the Celtic League should be cut to six places as opposed to the current nine, but that is no longer a current issue.

"Celtic League qualification is not an item under debate right now," continued Lewis.

"Our only problem is with the financial structure."

French clubs suffer even more in this respect than English clubs do, as the central French union takes a cut of the Heineken Cup revenue before it goes to the clubs. The RFU do not do this, and this may be at the core of Blanco's outburst on Monday.

"What Blanco has said about striking and changing the organisation could be more of a peculiarly French issue, because of the money," continued Lewis.

"Certainly striking is not something we have ever considered."

By Danny Stephens