After the pandemic: blood on the streets as a new-look future for French pro rugby emerges
While politicians and ordinary people grapple with the cold hard facts of the global health crisis, French professional rugby, like elsewhere, is now looking to a new reality beyond the acute financial pain of the coronavirus shutdown.
The immediate situation looks like this: All amateur competitions have ended for the season. France’s professional leagues have been suspended since March 13. A meeting of the LNR, scheduled for Tuesday, April 7, to decide the future of the current Top 14 and ProD2 seasons has been delayed until the end of the month.
“Faced with a complex and evolving situation, the Ligue Nationale de Rugby is giving itself time to reflect before taking, in consultation with the FFR, the first decisions related to the situation,” the LNR said in a statement.
While that decision has yet to be made. Bernard Laporte on Wednesday warned that, chances are, this season cannot be rescued.
Stopped after 17 rounds of the 29-weekend competition, French media report there are two favoured scenarios as the Top 14 tries to recoup some of the €100million it is expected to lose if the 2019/20 campaign is cancelled outright. It could maintain the current June 26 date for the final, with a shortened run-in; or move the final to July 18 – with the contractual issues that necessarily follow.
Those plans could be moot. As Robins Tchale-Watchou, president of players’ union Provale, said: “We have an unknown that complicates the various equations, which is how the health situation will evolve. Depending on when it ends, we may not be able to continue.
“Despite the goodwill of all the different actors, this unknown imposes itself on us.”
Tchale-Watchou’s ‘unknown’ will define everything the LNR decides for this season, and mch of what will happen for several years to come. Anyone expecting a rapid return to normality following the Covid-19 pandemic is fooling themselves. After this – whenever this ends – we will all have to adapt to a new normal. In rugby, as in real life.
For the former, cause and effect have already gone hand in hand. The virus has been the catalyst of a slamming halt in player recruitment in France’s top flight – as well as some serious rethinking of the future.
Things were already changing. The ever-evolving, ever-tightening JIFF regulations were already, slowly changing the face of French rugby. But Covid-19 has done in a matter of weeks what it took the JIFF regulations 10 years to achieve.
From next season, established Top 14 teams can have 14 non-JIFF players on their books, including any emergency short-term ‘medical jokers’. They must also average 16 JIFF-qualified players in their matchday squads across the season.
For financial reasons, clubs were looking to and investing in their academies. Toulon have made a big show about their new-build set-up at Berg, and their newly discovered quest for local talent. Ugo Mola’s Toulouse rebuilt from the youth up after Didier Lacroix took over the presidency and plugged a gaping hole in the club’s finances.
Look, too, at the crop of recent under-20 players with extensive top-level experience thanks, in part, to a coherent pathway put in place by France U20 coach Sebastien Piqueronies.
New compensation rules also mean clubs are repaid for the commitment and money they have spent developing young players who then sign their first professional contract for another side.
But it is Covid-19, its subsequent lockdown and the instantaneous drying-up of club income, rather than the slower processes already in place, that have combined to bring the entire overseas hiring process to a halt.
“Everybody has put an absolute brake on recruitment, on spending,” Brive President Simon Gillham told The Rugby Paper this week. “Everyone’s cutting back. Clubs are looking at young players in the academies, and saying, ‘how can we make do with those?’.
“Now is not the moment for shipping in expensive marquee players,” Gillham added. “There’s going to be a lot more focus on ‘local’ – locally produced, homegrown. We’re all going to have to sit down and say, ‘okay how do we reconfigure this?’.”
He is not the first club president to sound the alarm on French rugby’s finances. Even those with the deepest pockets have voiced their concern. “I can’t think of any other economy more fragile and uncertain than ours,” Montpellier’s Mohed Altrad told L’Equipe. “The balance between income and expenditure is in deficit, and we cannot live forever at a loss.”
Meanwhile, in an interview with Le Figaro, Thomas Lombard, managing director of Stade Francais, said: “The economic model of rugby is on the verge of faltering because of this crisis. We have probably gone too far – and I include my club in this. The urgent question today is how the clubs will survive.”
His living-beyond-our-means comments echoed those of a former Stade president, Thomas Savare, who sold the Paris outfit to Capri-Sun King Hans-Peter Wild after the failed merger with Racing 92.
Clermont’s Eric de Cromieres, meanwhile, revealed the club loses about €800,000 for every home game it doesn’t play. With five home games between the start of the league’s suspension and the end of the 26-week regular season, the club could be out of pocket to the tune of €4million just from that stream alone.
Gillham is at least optimistic. “It’s not as bad as some people make out. The club owners and presidents – we’ve been talking to each other an awful lot over the last few days – are incredibly responsible people with an absolute passion for the game.
Most of Sale's Boks are in SA.
– @chrisjonespress with the latesthttps://t.co/CQ0un6kInZ
— RugbyPass (@RugbyPass) April 8, 2020
“There are virtually 30 clubs like that. They’re acting responsibly. But there will be a change. There’ll be a lot of players on the market. They’ll be looking again at people’s salaries. People will look at things differently.”
Some of his predicted effects can be seen already. Incoming recruitment has stopped as clubs tighten their belts.
Kurtley Beale, who is heading to Racing 92 on a reported €400,000-a-year deal, is a rare big-name signing from outside France next season. That sum is much lower than the €1.2million the club paid Dan Carter a year, or the €600,000 Bordeaux have forked out for Semi Radradra’s defence-cutting services for two seasons.
Meanwhile Lyon’s outgoing number 8 Carl Fearns has already spoken about the fast-evaporating interest from clubs in the wake of the virus outbreak.
“It’s frustrating because the market is collapsing and I find myself in a difficult position,” he recently told The Rugby Paper. “Clubs are no longer talking about contracts and new signings.”
Fearns, who admitted he is considering the prospect of premature retirement if he comes to the end of his contract with Lyon in June with no place to go, is not alone. All Black Colin Slade, who joined Pau after the 2015 World Cup in England, has not been offered a new contract. There is no news on where the 32-year-old may end up.
Other big names out of contract at the end of the season include Dominic Bird, Donnacha Ryan, Ben Volavola, Sergio Parisse, Mamuka Gorgodze, Liam Messam, Nick Abendanon, and Greig Laidlaw.
It’s not just overseas stars seeking a new home. As it stands, experienced French players Benjamin Fall, Marc Andreu, Alexis Palison, Hugo Bonneval, Remy Grosso and Maxime Mermoz will find themselves out of work when their current contracts expire on June 30. Andreu and Grosso have both admitted retirement is not far from their thoughts.
With rugby rapidly rethinking its finances, player salaries are a prime target.
It means big-money players, used to marquee prices, are set to find their transfer market bargaining power greatly reduced, and those with JIFF status will be at an advantage. With clubs putting a freeze on recruitment during the Covid-19 crisis, supply looks set to exceed demand once the market finally reopens.
Between 2008 and 2018, according to the most recent report by the sport’s financial watchdog, the DNACG, the “average gross player payroll per club” jumped from €5.4million to €9.6million. Last season, they accounted for more than half of clubs’ operating expenses.
Revenues – including TV rights – have also increased, but more slowly.
Some clubs – Montpellier, Stade Francais, Racing 92, and Lyon – have a mega-rich patron to make up any shortfall. Others are company backed, such as Castres, and – to a certain extent – Clermont. Some rely more heavily than most on filling their stadiums – Toulouse, Bordeaux and La Rochelle fall into this category.
But, sooner rather than later, and as Toulon are already doing, clubs will have to change their model to fit their new circumstances. There will be fewer big-name stars chewing up the salary cap and a greater emphasis on younger, cheaper, French players.
As Tchale-Watchou said: “There was a before, and there will be an after.” After Covid-19, French rugby will have to review its lifestyle and cut down on the big salary, big name carbs.
The focus then shifts to other issues. The current TV deal – worth €97million a year – lasts until 2023. Relations between the league and pay-TV broadcaster Canal Plus are strong, but will the post-2019/20 French rugby product generate another big-money agreement? Will the fans approve of the changes? How will the new-look domestic landscape affect the national team, which was threatening to wake up again after a decade of slumber?
More questions, then. Few answers. Uncertainty is the only certainty in a post-Covid rugby nation.
Comments on RugbyPass
Totally deserved win for the Crusaders Far smarter than the Chiefs who seem to be avoiding the basics when it matters Hotham showed them what was missing and Hannah seems a real find - a tad light but that can be fixed over time
8 Go to commentsGreat insight into the performance culture with Sarries and I predict Christie will be a fixture in the Scotland team now for some time to come. However, he is slightly missing his own point around Scotland “being soft” when he cites physicality examples in defence of that slight. The issue is much closer to the example he referenced around feeling off before a game but being told “it doesn’t matter, you can still play well” by Farrell. Until Scotland can get their psyche in that square, they will carry on folding under extreme pressure…
1 Go to comments> We are having to adapt, evolve and innovate more than when we were in Super Rugby where there was only really one style that everybody had to play to gain the most success. Have = able to? Interesting what that one style might be? I thought SA sides still had bad tours now, or at least bad schedule, months away? Those extra few hours flights have to be a killer though, no surprise to see their sides doing so badly at the start of the season each year. I wouldn’t enjoy that unfairness as a supporter.
5 Go to commentsThe problem for NZ, and Aus, is they ripped up the SR model and lost a massive chunk of revenue that hasn’t been replaced. Don’t forget SA clubs went North because they were left with no choice, Argy unceremoniously binned and Japan cast adrift. Now SR wasn’t perfect, far from it, but they’ve jumped into something without an effective plan, so far, to replace what they’ve lost. The biggest revenue potential now lies in Japan but it won’t be easy or quick to unlock, they are incredibly insular in culture as a nation. In the meantime, there is a serious time bomb sitting under SH rugby and if it happens then the current financial challenges will look like a picnic. IF the Boks follow their provincial teams and head north then it’s revenue meltdown. Not guaranteed to happen but the status quo is a very odd hybrid, with the Boks pointing one way and the clubs pointing the other way. And for as long as that remains then the threat is real.
37 Go to commentsI think Etene has had some good tuition, likely while at the Warriors to be a professional that helped his rugby jump, but he was certainly thrown in the deep end way too early. Should have arguably 20 less SR caps, and therefor a way better record that he does at his age, but his development would have been fast tracked by the need to satiate his signing away from league. Again, credit to him and others that he has done it so well. Easy to fall over under that pressure in the big leagues like that but he kept at it when I myself wasn’t sure he was good enough.
1 Go to commentsAwesome story. I wonder what a bigger American (SA) scene might have mean for Brex.
1 Go to comments“Johnny McNicholl and the Crusaders” save a Penney. Who has been in camp this week and showed them how to play?
8 Go to commentsSo, reports of the Crusaders’ demise / terminal decline are perhaps just - slightly - premature/exaggerated…? 🤔 Will we see a deep-dive into that by the estimable Rugbypass scribes, and maybe one or two mea culpas? Thought not.
8 Go to comments1. The Chiefs are rudderless without DMac, which enhances his AB chances 2. Chiefs pack are powderpuffs. The hard men arent there anymore 3. They had their golden title chance last yr and wont threaten this yr. Gone in second round of playoffs.
8 Go to commentsHonestly, why did you have to publish such a foolish article the day they play us? 😂
37 Go to comments> They are not standalone entities. They are linked to an amateur association which holds the FFR licence that allows the professional side to compete in the league. That’s a great rule. This looks like the chicken or egg professional scenario. How long is it going to be before the club can break even (if that is even a thing in French rugby)? If the locals aren’t into well it would be good to se them drop to amateur level (is it that far?). Hope they can reset from this level and be more practical, there will be a time when they can rebuild (if France has there setup right).
1 Go to commentsWhat about changing the ball? To something heavier and more pointed that bounces unpredictably. Not this almost round football used these days.
35 Go to commentsThis is the problem with conservative mindsets and phycology, and homogenous sports, everybody wants to be the same, use the i-win template. Athlete wise everyone has to have muscles and work at the gym to make themselves more likely to hold on that one tackle. Do those players even wonder if they are now more likely to be tackled by that player as a result of there “work”? Really though, too many questions, Jake. Is it better Jake? Yes, because you still have that rugby of ole that you talk about. Is it at the highest International level anymore? No, but you go to your club or checkout your representative side and still engage with that ‘beautiful game’. Could you also have a bit of that at the top if coaches encouraged there team to play and incentivized players like Damian McKenzie and Ange Capuozzo? Of course we could. Sadly Rugby doesn’t, or didn’t, really know what direction to go when professionalism came. Things like the state of northern pitches didn’t help. Over the last two or three decades I feel like I’ve been fortunate to have all that Jake wants. There was International quality Super Rugby to adore, then the next level below I could watch club mates, pulling 9 to 5s, take on the countries best in representative rugby. Rugby played with flair and not too much riding on the consequences. It was beautiful. That largely still exists today, but with the world of rugby not quite getting things right, the picture is now being painted in NZ that that level of rugby is not required in the “pathway” to Super Rugby or All Black rugby. You might wonder if NZR is right and the pathway shouldn’t include the ‘amateur’, but let me tell you, even though the NPC might be made up of people still having to pull 9-5s, we know these people still have dreams to get out of that, and aren’t likely to give them. They will be lost. That will put a real strain on the concept of whether “visceral thrill, derring-do and joyful abandon” type rugby will remain under the professional level here in NZ. I think at some point that can be eroded as well. If only wanting the best athlete’s at the top level wasn’t enough to lose that, shutting off the next group, or level, or rugby players from easy access to express and showcase themselves certainly will. That all comes back around to the same question of professionalism in rugby and whether it got things right, and rugby is better now. Maybe the answer is turning into a “no”?
35 Go to commentsWow, didn’t realise there was such apathy to URC in SA, or by Champions Cup teams. Just read Nick’s article on Crusaders, are Sharks a similar circumstance? I think SA rugby has been far more balanced than NZs, no?
4 Go to commentsBut here in Australia we were told Penney was another gun kiwi coach, for the Tahs…….and yet again it turned out the kiwi coach was completely useless. Another con job on Australian rugby. As was Robbie Deans, as was Dave Rennie. Both coaches dumped from NZ and promoted to Australia as our saviour. And the Tahs lap them up knowing they are second rate and knowing that under pressure when their short comings are exposed in Australia as well, that they will fall in below the largest most powerful province and choose second rate Tah players to save their jobs. As they do and exactly as Joe Schmidt will do. Gauranteed. Schmidt was dumped by NZ too. That’s why he went overseas. That why kiwi coaches take jobs in Australia, to try and prove they are not as bad as NZ thought they were. Then when they get found out they try and ingratiate themselves to NZ again by dragging Australian teams down with ridiculous selections and game plans. NZ rugby’s biggest problem is that it can’t yet transition from MCaw Cheatism. They just don’t know how to try and win on your merits. It is still always a contest to see how much cheating you can get away with. Without a cheating genius like McCaw, they are struggling. This I think is why my wise old mate in NZ thinks Robertson will struggle. The Crusaders are the nursery of McCaw Cheatism. Sean Fitzpatrick was probably the father of it. Robertson doesn’t know anything else but other countries have worked it out.
37 Go to commentsIt could be coincidental or prescient that the All Blacks most dominant period under Steve Hansen was when the Crusaders had their least successful period under Todd Blackadder and then the positions reversed when Razor took over the Crusaders.
37 Go to commentsDefinitely sound read everybodyexpects immediate results these days, I don't think any team would travel well at all having lost three of the most important game changers in the game,compiled with the massive injury list they are now carrying, good to see a different more in depth perspective of a coaches history.
3 Go to commentsSinckler is a really big loss for English rugby.
2 Go to commentsThanks Nick The loss of players to OS, injury and retirement is certainly not helping the Crusaders. Ditto the coach. IMO Penny is there to hold the fort and cop the flak until new players and a new coach come through,…and that's understood and accepted by Penny and the Crusaders hierarchy. I think though that what is happening with the Crusaders is an indicator of what is happening with the other NZ SRP teams…..and the other SRP teams for that matter. Not enough money. The money has come via the SR competition and it’s not there anymore. It's in France, Japan and England. Unless or until something is done to make SR more SELLABLE to the NZ/Australia Rugby market AND the world rugby market the $s to keep both the very best players and the next rung down won't be there. They will play away from NZ more and more. I think though that NZ will continue to produce the players and the coaches of sufficient strength for NZ to have the capacity to stay at the top. Whether they do stay at the top as an international team will depend upon whether the money flowing to SRP is somehow restored, or NZ teams play in the Japan comp, or NZ opts to pick from anywhere. As a follower of many sports I’d have to say that the organisation and promotion of Super Rugby has been for the last 20 years closest to the worst I’ve ever seen. This hasn't necessarily been caused by NZ, but it’s happened. Perhaps it can be fixed, perhaps not. The Crusaders are I think a symptom of this, not the cause
37 Go to commentsNo way. If you are trying to picture New Zealand rugby with an All Blacks mindset, there have been two factors instrumental to the decline of NZ rugby to date. Those are the horror that the Blues have become and, probably more so, the fixture that the Crusaders became. I don’t think it was healthy to have one team so dominant for so long, both for lack of proper representation of players from outside that environment and on the over reliance on players from within it. If you are another international side, like Ireland for example, sure. You can copy paste something succinct from one level to the next and experience a huge increase in standards, but ultimately you will not be maximizing it, which is what you need to perform to the level the ABs do. Added to that is the apathy that develops in the whole game as a result of one sides dominance. NZ, Super, and Championship rugby should all experience a boom as a result of things balancing out. That said, there is a lot of bad news happening in NZ rugby recently, and I’m not sure the game can be handled well enough here to postpone the always-there feeling of inevitable decline of rugby.
37 Go to comments