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The World Club Cup can't come soon enough
My only slight dismay at news that a World Club Cup might happen, is having to wait until 2028 to see it.
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Our rugby competitions in New Zealand are stale, at best. At worst, they’re on life support.
A World Club Cup could be the thing that saves them.
Presumably, the top six clubs from Super Rugby Pacific will be the ones who form our portion of the proposed 16-team, four-week tournament in the northern hemisphere.
I sincerely hope that’s the actual top six teams. Not a reprise of the nonsensical conference system that was an embarrassment to Super Rugby for a time.
Oh yes. I’m pretty sure I remember the Lions qualifying for home finals one season without having had a New Zealand team on the schedule.
Or the Hurricanes finishing third overall, but having to go play the Brumbies in Canberra because they were Australia’s top-qualifier.
Something like that, anyway.
The point is, if we are having a World Club Cup and we are sending six teams from Super Rugby Pacific – or whatever it’s called by 2028 – then they need to qualify on merit. Not three from New Zealand and three from Australia, for instance.
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If the Fijian Drua or Moana Pasifika are among those six teams – assuming they’re still in the competition – then that’s fine by me.
As long as it’s all about merit and where you actually finish on the table.
The World Club Cup is exciting on its own merits, with a forecast eight teams from Europe, six from Super and two from Japan.
It’s the kind of rugby we’ve been crying out for.
But it’s what it adds to our competition – a bit like qualification for the Champions League in European football – that has the potential to create excitement.
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I’ve not read anything about World Club Cup prize money yet, but I hope that goes solely to the participating clubs and not their governing bodies.
I don’t love rugby being a nanny state here and nor do I have any particular interest in salary caps or even distributions of talent.
All leagues have some mechanism to theoretically even things out, whether it’s a Luxury Tax in the NBA or Financial Fair Play in football.
But, essentially, it’s the big clubs and big franchises in the big markets that generally reign supreme. And, when they don’t, like Chelsea FC or Manchester United at the moment, fans, former players and pundits line up to criticise them.
That’s professional sport. That’s interesting. That engages audiences. That sells subscriptions and generates readers.
If you can qualify for the World Club Cup every four years – as it’s initially been earmarked for – and win it once or twice, then you deserve to be well-compensated.
For those that don’t qualify, you create a very real incentive to do so next time.
Hopefully it’s the start of things to come.
Schedules are always juggling acts, but when the ICC saw how much money their men’s Twenty20 World Cup generated, they quickly decided to have them every two years instead of four.
We don’t know what rugby’s World Club Cup could become, but we’re acutely aware in New Zealand of how quickly things can stagnate when you’re content to maintain the status quo.
This feels like an argument for the globalization of club competition. Which has its merits. But somehow this will become a political sh;tshow.
The focus should be on how to strengthen, as far as possible, local competitions.
Trying to treat the southern hemisphere as one region, Super Rugby, was fun while it lasted. The logistics of teams traversing the Atlantic/Indian Ocean, time zones (which means that at least a third to half of interested fans are likely sleeping during the games) should have taught us a lesson.
SA playing in Europe solves a time zone problem, for example, but costs of logistics and the fact that rugby is being played in summer and winter months - there are still issues that are coming to the fore.
I’m not against the idea of seeing clubs from across the world compete each other. I just think a world club competition should be less of a priority than building strong local/regional competitions first. The solution to the problem isn’t always about centralizing everything into a World Cup format. Feels lazy.
For example. I think the pacific has a great opportunity with Japan being brought in to the mix with SR somehow to take the place of SA. They have an interesting product and they’re all on each others doorstep. There’s money and eyes available there. And my friends from New Zealand, this can provide an avenue for all blacks to play “abroad” without losing them entirely. The eligibility thing… don’t shoot me. I’m just saying.
Perhaps the winners of various competitions across the globe (including the Americas) can play in some sort of world knockout tournament. But first sort out the regional competitions and products. and don’t make it a quota system. The best play-off.
I had wondered if the news might generate more interest for the specific parties themselves to find room for a north v south final each year. I also hope it uses our ‘clubs’, or Provinces, and not SR Franchises (it would be too lame).
What happened in football, with only the 3 or 4 original teams (from each country) able to win the CL is not professional sport. That’s _not _interesting. That engages the lowest common denominator audience, true, but misses the mark selling subscriptions to everyone, or generating readers within this current contested market. Only now really other teams are start to overcome the dominance of sides established by imputes of the elitist CL format.This is not football. Think originally.
Is this an article about the World Club Cup or is it just another opportunity to regurgitate familiar right-wing talking points about “nanny states”?