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'Breeding farms' - Incensed Samoan PM the latest to launch broadside on World Rugby greed

England played Samoa in 2017

Samoa’s Prime Minister has attacked World Rugby’s plans to launch a Nations Championship insisting the proposed structure will mean the Pacific Islands nations will remain as merely “breeding farms” for larger rugby countries.

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Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi, who is also chairman of Samoa Rugby, is no stranger to controversy and his comments come as World Rugby chiefs assemble in Dublin to discuss controversial plans for a 12 nation competition that is unlikely to feature Fiji, Tonga and Samoa in the top flight.

Tuilaepa told TVNZ it was clear World Rugby’s supposed development of tier two nations is nothing but hypocrisy and lip service.

“The inclusion of Italy and the United States, who are not in the top 12 world rankings, clearly points to greed and selfishness,” he said. “This new concept will treat Tier 2 unions as mere breeding farms for the rich 12 to pick and choose players from.”

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Tuilapa says he is disappointed with the “lackadaisical attitude” of the All Black and Wallabies management as island players have contributed so much to the development of their game and is calling for major changes, including the easing of eligibility rules, gate-sharing of takings and setting up a Tribunal by law to adjudicate on contentious issues.

World Rugby has insisted no firm decisions have yet been made about the proposed world league competition with tomorrow’s Dublin meeting involving representatives from all tier-one nations, along with Fiji, Japan. However, the concept is in danger of collapse with the Six Nations organisation, also based in Dublin, being offered more than £500m by CVC for a 30 percent stake in the annual tournament reducing the financial need to take part in World Rugby’s new competition.

World Rugby have responded to Tuilaepa’s comments by making it clear promotion and relegation is part of the Championship structure allowing Tier 2 nations to rise up the ladder.

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J
JW 4 hours ago
'Let's not sugarcoat it': Former All Black's urgent call to protect eligibility rules

Yep, no one knows what will happen. Thing is I think (this is me arguing a point here not a random debate with this one) they're better off trialing it now in a controlled environment than waiting to open it up in a knee jerk style reaction to a crumbling organtization and team. They can always stop it again.


The principle idea is that why would players leave just because the door is ajar?


BBBR decides to go but is not good enough to retain the jersey after doing it. NZ no longer need to do what I suggest by paying him to get back upto speed. That is solely a concept of a body that needs to do what I call pick and stick wth players. NZR can't hold onto everyone so they have to choose their BBBRs and if that player comes back from a sabbatical under par it's a priority to get him upto speed as fast as possible because half of his competition has been let go overseas because they can't hold onto them all. Changing eligibility removes that dilemma, if a BBBR isn't playing well you can be assured that someone else is (well the idea is that you can be more assured than if you only selected from domestic players).


So if someone decides they want to go overseas, they better do it with an org than is going to help improve them, otherwise theyre still basically as ineligible as if they would have been scorning a NZ Super side that would have given them the best chance to be an All Black.

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