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Bernard Laporte: CVC will acquire share of Six Nations

(Photo by Bryn Lennon/Getty Images)

World Rugby vice-chairman Bernard Laporte has revealed that CVC will acquire a 14.5 per cent stake in the Guinness Six Nations. The former head coach of France revealed the news publicly at the AGM of the FFR that was held over the weekend. The estimated £400,000 million-plus buy-in has been delayed by the global coronavirus pandemic.

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The exact breakdown of the deal is yet to be revealed, but Midi Olympique report that France are set to bag at least €75 million (£67.5m) over five years.

The deal has come at the perfect time for the cash strapped unions, who are forecast to lose millions due to pandemic lockdown.

RugbyPass reported last year that the CVC deal could see some Six Nations matches no longer broadcast on free-to-air television, a move that would inevitably cause controversy in the sport.

It’s a double windfall for Ireland, Wales, Scotland and Italy. The Luxembourg-based group, who previously invested in Formula One before switching its attention to rugby, spent £120million acquiring a stake in the PRO14.

The total value to the Irish, Italian, Scottish and Welsh unions is in the order of £30m each (net of costs), with an initial sum expected on Friday of approximately £5m to be paid to each of the four countries. South Africa, who have Southern Kings and Cheetahs playing in the league, won’t benefit from this deal.

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Flankly 1 hour ago
'Absolute madness': Clive Woodward rips into Borthwick in wake of NZ loss

Borthwick is supposed to be the archetypical conservative coach, the guy that might not deliver a sparkling, high-risk attacking style, but whose teams execute the basics flawlessly. And that's OK, because it can be really hard to beat teams that are rock solid and consistent in the rugby equivalent of "blocking and tackling".


But this is why the performance against NZ is hard to defend. You can forgive a conservative, back-to-basics team for failing to score tons of tries, because teams like that make up for it with reliability in the simple things. They can defend well, apply territorial pressure, win the set piece battles, and take their scoring chances with metronomic goal kicking, maul tries and pick-and-go goal line attacks.


The reason why the English rugby administrators should be on high alert is not that the English team looked unable to score tries, but that they were repeatedly unable to close out a game by executing basic, coachable skills. Regardless of how they got to the point of being in control of their destiny, they did get to that point. All that was needed was to be world class at things that require more training than talent. But that training was apparently missing, and the finger has to point at the coach.


Borthwick has been in the job for nearly two years, a period that includes two 6N programs and an RWC campaign. So where are the solid foundations that he has been building?

4 Go to comments
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