LONG READ ‘In rugby we need something new’: Lions tour to France gaining traction

It was back in March that the idea was first mooted of a Lions Test against France. It wouldn’t be the first. As part of their Bicentennial celebrations to mark the French Revolution, Les Bleus played and lost to the Lions in Paris in 1989.

The Daily Telegraph, which broke the story earlier this year, said that the Lions would like to play France as a preface to the women’s tour in 2027 and the men’s in 2029, which are both to New Zealand. In other words it would be a loosener before flying south.

Since then, an idea has grown of something altogether more ambitious: a full-blooded tour to France. Executives reportedly held discussions in Australia last week about the possibility.

Abdel Benazzi, the former France forward and now vice-president of the French federation (FFR), will be pushing the case for France, as he did in Dublin last month when he had an “informal” chat with the Lions’ suits before the warm-up match against Argentina. “Our position as a neighbour is that we can do something together in the future,” he said. “How we can build something bigger for rugby, for everyone around the world with this meeting and secondly, how we can build some business between the two institutions, the Lions and France.”

Not everyone is taken with the idea of the Lions touring France. The former England and Lions hooker Brian Moore wrote last week that such talk is “misguided” because it would undermine the Six Nations, “the world’s oldest and premier rugby union tournament, which has been consistently popular and commercially successful.”

It’s hard to see how a Lions tour to France every 16 years (if the destination were to be incorporated into the existing cycle of the three southern hemisphere nations) would undermine the Six Nations. Benazzi clearly doesn’t think so, and he is president of the Six Nations Council.

Any Lions series in France would certainly be competitive; it would also involve some spine-tingling midweek matches: Toulouse, Bordeaux, Clermont, Toulon, a clash against a Paris XV composed of the finest from Racing 92 and Stade Français. Even if the French internationals were off preparing for the Test series, these clubs would still be chock-a-block with talent from the southern hemisphere, Italy, Ireland and Britain.

The idea of a Lions tour is gaining momentum in France. All the matches in Australia have been broadcast on L’ÉquipeTV, the broadcasting arm of the famous sports daily, and the dedicated rugby newspaper Midi Olympique ran a recent article headlined ‘And what if the Lions came on tour to France?’

Matches against the Lions are of course of major sporting interest, but they also represent considerable revenue potential at a time when the FFR is being bled dry.

It’s not just Benazzi who likes the idea of the Lions coming to France. So does his boss, Florian Grill, the president of the FFR. “Matches against the Lions are of course of major sporting interest, but they also represent considerable revenue potential at a time when the FFR is being bled dry,” he told L’Équipe in March.

A few weeks earlier Grill had laid bare the economic woes of the FFR, explaining that they were €75 million in the red and in dire need of government help. A little help from the Lions wouldn’t go amiss, either.

It’s not the FFR who need persuading, however, it’s the Ligue Nationale de Rugby (LNR), the governing body of the Top 14. It’s only a few years since the two bodies were at loggerheads and no one in French rugby wants a repeat of that acrimony. “We won’t do anything without consulting with the National Rugby League,” emphasised Grill. “It has to be part of the agreement…because nothing can be done without the LNR’s approval.”

When contacted by the media in March, the LNR were cagey in responding, saying that “issues relating to the calendar and the availability of players for the coming years” would be discussed in due course with the FFR.

A Lions tour shouldn’t be confined to the affluent supporter. They are for everyone who loves rugby.

The attitude of the LNR and the clubs they represent is likely to be ‘what’s in it for us?’. To which they would expect to hear ‘Money’. There are some splendid stadiums in France, in Bordeaux, Lyon, Paris, Toulouse, Marseille, Nantes and Lille, all capable of holding between 35,000 and 80,000 people. That’s a large financial pie to slice up.

But arguably the strongest reason for a Lions tour is to ‘democratise’ the brand. And a brand it has become. A lucrative one for everyone involved, particularly tour operators.

The packages they offer to supporters wanting to follow the Lions to South Africa, New Zealand and Australia usually run into five figure sums. How is a student or a mum and dad on a low-income wage with two children able to afford forking out over £10,000 per person, particularly during this sustained cost-of-living crisis?

A Lions tour shouldn’t be confined to the affluent supporter. They are for everyone who loves rugby. That would be the great thing about a tour to France; it could be done on a shoestring budget. Imagine: four students taking the ferry to France in their battered old banger with a tent and a camping stove in the boot. They drive down through France, from venue to venue, having booked a spot in a conveniently-located campsite. It’s the height of the northern hemisphere summer, and not the depths of the southern hemisphere winter. Their biggest outlay would be match tickets, but the whole tour should cost no more than a few hundred quid. That’s a lot less than the £23,495 that one tour operator was charging for the Australia tour.

It’s inconceivable that the Lions ditch Australia. Mates don’t do that to each other. Australian rugby is in poor health but it will recover with the help of its friends.

But why not also add France to the schedule?  “In rugby we need something new,” said Benazzi. “Thinking about what the youngsters want, what a new public want.”

Exactly. A new Lions tour that would attract a new and younger public. What could be better, other than beating the French?