World Rugby’s shameless, secret plan to exclude Pacific Islands
World Rugby’s insulting proposition to block Pacific Island nations from playing top level internationals for the next 12 years has been greeted with the contempt it deserves.
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Rarely has a global sporting body misread the room as badly as World Rugby.
Blinded by their lust for greenbacks and yen, World Rugby’s insulting proposition to block Pacific Island nations from playing top level internationals for the next 12 years has been greeted with the contempt it deserves.
The players, and their national unions as it turns out, are sticking together after drawing a line in the sand on what they’ll do for extra cash and no-one is willing to betray their Pacific brethren for their 30 pieces of silver.
Bernard Foley, the Waratahs’ Player Director on the RUPA Board, said Australian players would not support a proposal preventing smaller nations from having the same opportunities as the big ones.
“The game’s going extremely well globally but we don’t want to deny regions that opportunity,” Foley told The Daily Telegraph.
“Almost half, 47 per cent, of our members have Pacific Island heritage and we all want to help develop and grow the region not exclude them by denying them the path to play for their home nation on the world stage.”
Foley said Australian players are open to any ideas that will grow the game, including the proposed establishment of an annual global league, at least before the goalposts were shifted.
Under the initial proposal, the six highest-ranked teams from each hemisphere would compete in the top tier while a second tier would allow for developing sides to be promoted on merit.
Then it was revealed that World Rugby had come with a fresh proposal, that they were keeping secret before voting on it at a board meeting later this month.
Instead of picking the sides on rankings, they wanted teams in bigger markets, which meant the United States (ranked 13th) would be promoted to the top level while Fiji (ranked 9th) would play in the second tier and would be stuck there for at least 12 years after the promise of promotion and relegation was taken off the table.
“We don’t know what’s going on in the backrooms,” Foley said.
“We’d definitely heard about the idea of a new league but we didn’t know about the ring fencing and the 12-year nature of it.”
Pacific Island teams have always been treated as second-class citizens by the sport’s traditional powers. Their best players are systematically poached by foreign countries and clubs while the cashed-up international teams rarely visit their shores.
The Brumbies’ RUPA representative Scott Sio, who has Samoan heritage, said if the latest proposal was approved, it would have a devastating effect because it would force Pacific Island players to leave their homes or switch sports.
“Twelve years is a very long time. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if those players did decide to do that,” he said. “To have an opportunity like this unavailable to them would be a crime.”
Rugby Australia also opposes the idea of excluding Pacific Island teams but does support the general proposal to develop a new league because it will inject new money into the game.
“Finding options to review that will deliver increased commercial revenues that allow Australia to have a high performing Wallaby team, keep our best talent in the country and invest in community rugby, are not easy to find but must be explored,” a statement from chief executive Raelene Castle read.
“These exploratory discussions have been robust and complex, with player welfare, the growth of developing nations and protecting the great history of the game front and centre in the conversation.”
Caught out by the leak, World Rugby officials went straight on the defensive after being roasted on social media with Australian Brett Gosper, the World Rugby CEO, slammed after citing “fan research via independent company in major broadcast markets” to vindicate the change in plans.
World Rugby is adamant nothing has been decided yet but there are visible signs of cracks emerging within the organisation with vice-chairman Agustin Pichot declaring: “I will never support a league that doesn’t have a pathway for emerging nations.”
Originally published as World Rugby’s shameless, secret plan to exclude Pacific Islands
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