The Big, Ugly Problems With World Rugby’s 12-Team World League

It might be a Rugby World Cup year, but this week’s rumblings of a World Rugby World League could easily be the talking point of the year. Initially discussed late in 2018, the comings together of the 12-team north/south crossover competition could turn rugby union as it’s known entirely on its head.

The proposal is grand and, on paper, could do a lot to consolidate the strengths of the international game. The 12-team annual event (minus RWC years) would bring together the existing Six Nations teams -England, France, Ireland, Italy, Scotland, and Wales- and the outfits of The Rugby Championship -Argentina, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. The proposal would include admission into The Rugby Championship for both Japan (who currently has a team in SANZAAR’s Super Rugby) and USA, which would be major exposure increases for the two budding unions.

Both The Rugby Championship and Six Nations would continue to run in their regular allotted windows of the year -February/March for 6N, & August/September for Rugby Championship- where the teams will play five games against those within their own competition. The June/July and November test windows would then, however, be replaced with the rotating portion of the calendar matches. In June/July, the northern hemisphere teams would travel south and play three test matches. In November, the south would travel north and play the three teams not yet seen. It would be a rotating home-and-away as both the Six Nations and Rugby Championship operate as currently. The top four teams would then play semifinal and final matches in November/December, likely within Europe or the USA.

It would provide annual matches against rugby union’s best squads, provide plenty of incentive for fielding elite outfits on a regular basis, and provide significant financial benefits to the parties involved. Up front, each union is looking to pocket USD$6.8-$9.5 million annually. That’s merely the range broadcasting rights fees currently under discussion could garnish. There’s still the game day sales as well as merchandising and the general fundraising and sponsorship deals each union will collect.

But that’s part of the problem, when you start to peel back the curtain, the initiative looks less about growing the game than stuffing the pockets of the sport’s already elite. The brainchild of World Rugby vice-chairman Agustin Pichot, who has said the international game was long under threat and struggling financially, the organization shakeup is being sold as a radical improvement to the rugby calendar. But getting left behind in the enterprise is essentially the rest of the rugby world.

While the game continues to grow in pockets across the world, the World League would essentially shut the door on all non-Tier 1 unions. Japan and USA, ahead of higher ranked Pacific Island nations, likely find themselves included because of the media market viability both offer. Locked into a 10-year structure with no implementations of relegation/promotion, the move could make rugby more popular than ever while simultaneously killing the grassroots growth internationally.

There are time sensitive matters that will play major roles in the pushing forward of the deal that perhaps could push World Rugby to be aggressive in securing the votes on such a measure. While an unnamed broadcaster has reportedly shown interest in picking up the World League’s coverage, the deal could be put on the brink by the Six Nations currently sourcing a renewal or new broadcasting deal, as the BBC/ITV deal is set to expire in 2021. The World League would be slated to start in 2020. While not outright a deal breaker, Six Nations signing a new broadcast deal would absolutely put a major speed bump in the process.

Bear in mind, the current implementation of the idea isn’t necessarily what we’ll ultimately get. World Rugby issued a statement today noting some inaccuracies in the initial reports. Being in a possible rush to push this new restructure before Six Nations renews and likely desirably ahead of the Rugby World Cup, to coincide with an announcement during or immediately after, might omit some of the usual oversight World Rugby has. And that could be detrimental to the sport as its known.

Cheapens Rugby World Cup

If discussions of expanding the Rugby World Cup to 24 teams have been met with counterarguments of cheapening the contest and adding to player health concerns, what the hell does the World League do to the tournament that’s meant to crown the world’s best?

A Rugby World Cup doesn’t even guarantee the meetings of the top-ranked teams. The World League ensure the “top 12” teams meet at least once along the lines of the competition in determining the winner. Where an average RWC pool play includes a couple of outside threats, the World League is front-to-start the best against the best. That notion, in itself, is an outstanding prospect (Ireland v New Zealand once a year sounds great), but then why the hell do teams care about the Webb Ellis Trophy once that change is enacted?

The Rugby World Cup could essentially become a glorified U-20, Tier 2 battleground crown. If you want the world’s best pitted against each other each year with more on the line than test records and the mere honor of the game, you cannot simultaneously have a once every four years crown, where the top two seeds might not ever play each other, hold the same weight in importance.

If this is a measure to all but do away with the World Cup, it’s a bad idea, but that’s at least better than selling the two as dueling significance.

The World League will without a doubt eat into the turnout and value of the Rugby World Cup. How do France (2023) and future prospective bidding hosts feel about that?

Dangerous To Touring And Other International Competitions

Another major scare in this finitely managed calendar is that it would not allow for much availability for special tours such as the British and Irish Lions. The Lions offer rugby, as a global sport, one of the more unique qualities. The banding together of four unions to unite against the southern hemisphere teams once every four years, that’s just something you don’t see in any other sport. And the Lions, though the most well known, aren’t the only unique creation among the sport that get to then go play against prestigious matches.

It’ll also result in shifts for competitions such as the Americas Rugby Championship, which is coming into form and budding some talented stars, as well as Rugby Europe International Championships. Which leads into perhaps the biggest concern of all.

Tier 2 & 3 Genocide

While the measure is sold as such that it would be saving a dying formula for international rugby, the World League all put takes the Tier 2 & 3 unions out back behind the flashy happiness World Rugby is selling you and puts a bullet in the back of their heads. At the very least, the initiative leaves them tied up and tossed into a dense foreign wilderness left to fend for themselves. There’s no other way to really put, as thing stand currently, the World League all but disenfranchises the Tier 2 & 3 nations from World Rugby.

Without promotion or relegation in the current structure, World Rugby is telling #9 ranked Fiji, #12 ranked Georgia, #14 ranked Tonga, #16 ranked Samoa, #21 ranked Canada, etc. that they are not worthy of test level rugby against Tier 1 nations, barring one of them parlaying test matches in an already frighteningly tight yearly window. For 12 years these teams are left to fend without the allure of taking the pitch against the all mighty All Blacks, taking to Twickenham Stadium, hearing the roar of Aviva Stadium, or selling their home nation’s supporters a match of the year to see the visiting Alun Wyn Jones and red-hot Wales or the flashy runs of World Rugby Breakthrough Player of the Year Aphiwe Dyantyi and the Springboks.

It’s a sickening disillusion for World Rugby to think this will not carry major implications to the “outsiders” of the rugby world. Even running a secondary tier tournament in conjunction only relieves so much of the insult. Test level matches against Tier 1 nations helps a team understand just how much better of a game can be played, They equal fantastic matches for supporters to come and spend their hard earned money to watch. They’re included in World Rugby, even when the All Blacks send out a partially experimental roster against Samoa and still trounce them.

It’s insulting to the blossoming teams like Fiji, who are coming off a November tour that saw them beat France on the road. It’s dangerous to a once prospering team like Canada that needs every bit of inclusion they can get to stay afloat and work to improve. It chips into developing efforts in Europe from Georgia, Germany, and Spain, all but giving those teams a physical ceiling to play to. If USA pulls out of the Americas Rugby Championship, or even follows Argentina and sends developmental sides, it limits the growth of teams like Brazil, that nearly toppled a fully-outfitted USA and did just that against Canada already this year.

The Pacific Island nations are particularly hard hit by this measure. The teams most deserving of inclusion and long knocking on the door, World Rugby all but tells them their efforts are not worthy. And the direness this move will have looms over these unions and players.

“I’ve been in discussions with the three CEOs [of Fiji, Samoa and Tonga rugby] last night and we talked about the impact of this and one of them straight out said that ‘this will be death of Pacific Island Rugby’ and another discussion indicated that ‘we might as well start playing league’,” said Pacific Rugby Players CEO Aayden Clarke to Stuff. “Historically the islands have contributed hugely to the game across the world… Looking forward, there are 18-year-old young Samoans, Tongans and Fijians now who will now be looking at ‘who do I make myself eligible for’ because if I play for my home country I will never play in the bright lights of Twickenham and possibly will never have the opportunity to play the All Blacks or Australia.

“There’s been a change to a five-year stand down to eligibility, enforced by World Rugby, but I tell you what, a five-year stand-down in France is a lot more appealing than 12 years and we’re only going to [see] an increase in players playing for other countries.

“We’re going to see players withdrawing from test rugby and signing three to four year deals with French or UK clubs, quite happy to step down from international rugby because, no disrespect, but they don’t value test matches against the likes of Spain, Russia and Uruguay as high as playing against top nations.”

Agustin Pichot, who has been bombarded on Twitter today, has stood firm that this measure wouldn’t kill Tier 2 unions, but the public opinion remains to believe the opposite. Via his Twitter, as well, Pichot continues to say he is fighting in the corner for promotion and relegation.

Makes Player Safety A Facade Topic

A rugby player’s health is a constant, terrifying battle of attrition. Finding the places in both a professional and international schedule for rest is already a tall order for the game’s best. Introducing an annual tournament that provides much fewer games to run out a more secondary unit is nothing short of dangerous from the global body that is World Rugby. What’s worse, it comes at a time where the organization has done all it can to put player safety front-and-center in all decisions. The World League makes all that feel a bit like a facade.

Over 40 of the world’s top players have already expressed their concerns with the dangers of the World League schedule including England’s Owen Farrell, New Zealand’s Kieran Read, and Ireland and International Rugby Players president Jonny Sexton.

“While players gave this idea a cautious welcome when we met at the end of last year, it now seems like a commercial deal on the future of the game is being negotiated at a rapid pace with little consideration given to the important points we raised with World Rugby in November,” said Sexton. “The issue of player load has never been so topical, however needs to be properly understood.

“To suggest that players can play five incredibly high-level Test matches in consecutive weeks in November, is out of touch and shows little understanding of the physical strain this brings.”

Sexton’s concerns are valid, and for a measure that could be lucrative for unions and players, it’s indicative that so many players have voiced their concerns. Sure, players are already traveling north/south in June and November annually. But the benefit of some of those tours are that they can offer more -don’t take this insulting- games that don’t task their fully equipped roster. With the World League, there are now merely three teams that are likely to struggle with regularity against the majority of the competition, that being USA, Japan, and Italy. The remaining nine teams are matches that require everything you have to conquer.

Teams going south will have major travel upheavals. Even if it’s structured so that one year three northern teams play each of USA, Argentina, and South Africa, while the others play Australia, Japan, and New Zealand to reduce travel, it’s still major travel across multiple time zones featuring top-level test matches. Teams will much more cautiously send their elite a few stops ahead of the tour to garner rest, opting for secondary units for some games.

For the teams going north in the fall, should you make it to the final, you’re playing five matches to close out a painstaking international campaign in close succession with significant travel. Albeit the two playoff matches likely would both be at a neutral site, that’s a lot of miles on weary bodies. The schedule isn’t entirely foreign to some of these teams, but upping the intensity of each match only adds to the grueling slog.

Not a single player rep was invited to the meetings held in Los Angeles last month to discuss the updated plans. They’re certainly making their voices heard now, and it’s at least being met with the World Rugby board listening, even if just a bit.

Professional Competition Impact

And in conjunction with the frequency of needing the top-level talent for World League matches, that will of course chip in significantly to player availability for their professional clubs. That’s already a relationship that has become rockier and rockier over the previous few years. The World League could all but implode the harmonious blend of international and professional careers. Does a club contract become second tier to a full-time international career? How many games can international squad members truly be made available through the course of a domestic season? It’s already a lottery of picking your spots.

At a time where major money floats around the Premiership and Top 14, the PRO14 aggressively continues to expand, Super Rugby finds itself on possible shaky legs, and Major League Rugby is gaining steam, what are the impacts the World League holds there? Sure, at 12 teams with a training roster of 30 players, matchday of 23, you’re not depleting your entire country’s talent pool, but the more and more full-time international duties become, the more you remove those players from the entertainment value of the professional leagues. Surely these organizations and teams have something to say on the matter.

Is the current World Rugby calendar perfect right now? Heavens no. But is the World League the best solution to this problem? Hard to feel like it is. This ambitious change holds major positives for those partaking, and long begging for inclusion into the grander discussions and happenings of World Rugby as an American rugby observer, this is a vindicating moment. But at what cost are those benefits being earned? To all but kill off the game in parts of the world to see it succeed more within the most viable regions, when does the risk just merely outweigh the reward?