There are plenty of jokes to be cracked about professional rugby’s hot love affair with cold-blooded capitalism, but what’s the point? Ninety-nine per cent of readers cannot afford to get them.
So let’s do away with the funnies and put on our serious faces, for the very good reason that the latest financiers to throw money at the sport – the Luxembourg-based private equity company CVC and the American technology investment specialists Silver Lake – are not in it for the giggles. These people get their laughs in the counting house, not the Comedy Store.
Finance is the first thing on the gam...