By Prof
July 28 2006

In part eight of the report from te Quinssa Meet The Management Evening Mark Evans and Dean Richards talk about the pros and cons of relegation and promotion and central contracts.

Q: Do you think that the question of no relegation will come up again?

ME: [Laughs] My views on that haven’t changed. Actually I don’t think it will come up again this season despite all the recent talk of the RFU buying clubs and all of that nonsense. I think that, wrongly, it is not deliverable, partly through the way it’s been reported, partly because of political reasons amongst certain groups, I think that it’s become almost a taboo subject that you just have to accept. I disagree but I think that we are stuck for the foreseeable future with a flawed system. Dean disagrees with me I know, we have long discussions about it. My view has been the same for ten years – stepping out of my Harlequins hat and putting my rugby hat on – I would love to get a club competition in England like rugby league is in Australia, they’ve had seven different clubs win the title in the last seven years. I think the ideal sporting league, which is entirely theoretical, is where every single supporter of every club in the year can genuinely say, on the first day of the season, can say This year we can win it” and not just be blinkered. I think we had an opportunity to do that in rugby union and I think we’ve blown it. But with my Harlequins hat on we want to win it every year.

Q: Would you like to comment on the stories coming out about the RFU buying the clubs?

ME: They’d better look elsewhere, there not going to buy Quins. I don’t think they’ve got enough money, I doubt that there’s a single club in the Premiership who would sell. There are only two Premiership clubs that are PLCs, the liquidity in Northamton shares is such that you can’t buy them and Leicester have something in their rules of association that says something like you can’t own more than 5% of the club.

Q: What do you think of the idea of central contracts?

DR: You might get some of the players who want to take it up but what you’ll find is that any of the youngsters coming through and the second tier after that will be contracted by clubs for a long, long time. So once those established players have seen their time out who are the RFU going to choose.

ME: I don’t think it will happen, one thing that will stop it will be the players. Forget for a minute what might be good or not good for English rugby – remembering that English rugby doesn’t start and finish with the English national team, English rugby is a lot bigger than that.

Let’s just think about the side, if you were a rugby player who just happened to be English, playing in the English league, which would you prefer, one employer or twelve people competing for your services? It’s a no brainer isn’t it? Whatever line of work you are in would you enter into an employment contract if there was only one purchaser of labour in that market? The answer is probably not, if you can enter a market where there are twelve possible employers who would all like to employ you. At the moment a player can say ‘I’m playing for Bath at the moment and I’m earning x and it’s the end of my contract so I’ll go and talk to a, b and c’. But if you have central contracts, that central contract is fixed for a time and it’s fixed for a salary, so if your 24 years of age and you’re offered a three year central contract at whatever level, would you take it if the club says ‘if you take a central contract you’ll never play for us again’ because that’s what it would come down to. If you take a central contract then forget it. I don’t think many players when they stop and think about it would enter into a two or a three year contract with a national contract with a national team when they know that at the end it might not get renewed.

Q: Why then does it work in cricket?

ME: It works in cricket because the way cricket is structured is that they have eighteen counties (basically a franchise system – they have two divisions but nobody goes down from division two) and basically those counties don’t make any money. The counties are virtually entirely funded by the revenue that international cricket generates about 85% of the income, perhaps a bit less now with 20:20. So it’s only fair therefore that the governing body who runs international cricket says we want people on central contracts. And the counties are happy with that. The situation in rugby is completely different, Harlequins and the Premiership clubs turns over anywhere between £6-12M, at the most 10& comes from the RFU. So would you give up all of your assets to someone who funds 10% of your revenue stream? It’s a completely different scenario. I am sure the Union would love central contracts, Brian Moore put it beautifully in the Telegraph a couple of weeks ago “you had your chance in ’95, you screwed up, get over it!” He always had a bit of a way with words did Brian [laughs].