Jeff Probyn: What’s the money on Toulon making it four on the spin?

As the dust settles on the first ever Champions Cup and the remarkable but unsurprising success of Toulon in winning their third successive
European crown, the question is: what will it take to stop them winning a fourth?
The reason it’s unsurprising is simply because if you are prepared to spend the money that Mourad Boudjellal has you can buy the best players in the game and, more importantly, more of them than your rivals.
Salary caps and excluded players systems are designed to make an even playing field. But this works only if they are enforced and the fact that neither the Top14 nor the Premiership have ever admitted finding a club in breach of their caps, proves that either they work exceptionally well with some clubs able to persuade a number of elite international players to play for low wages, or those in charge are not looking hard enough.
Admittedly, it is not the easiest thing to police, particularly as a player’s tax return is a private matter between him, his accountant and HMRC and there will always be the politics of envy where clubs will accuse rivals of breaches if they lose.
There is, however, a simple logic that says if you have a squad of 43 of the best international players from all over the world, some of whom at their previous clubs were reportedly earning in excess of £250,000 per season it’s unlikely that they would have upped sticks and moved abroad for less.
Personally, I have no problem with that, As a player you have a short working life so you have to make as much as you can where you can, but I must admit that I find the hypocrisy of all (owners and players) trying to pretend that they have the interests of the club and fans at heart a bitter pill to swallow.
Toulon’s win at the weekend was put down to the spirit of the club, the unity of the Toulonnais team and fans driving the team on to success, when the reality has little or nothing to do with that.
A disparate group of star players from all over the world brought together to play as a team is not something that is an invention of the modern professional game, the Barbarians have been doing it for years, the only difference being that for them it was just for a week or two.
Back when I played and captained the Baa-baas and played in a World XV, unlike at club level it was not the fans you played for, it was the respect of your fellow players.
If you are regarded as one of the best players in the world, every time you take to the field you owed it to yourself and your teammates to show why you are what is now called a Galactico.
As a player, the call to play for the Barbarians was among the highest accolades you could have, which was a chance to play with the best players from other countries that you respected but only got to play against.
The Barbarians are not constrained by the politics of inclusion like the Lions and can pick players from any rugby playing country but, even so, come professionalism, that was not enough to guarantee their survival.
Professional rugby is like any job, it is about how much you earn and where you can get the best deal, so whether it is Toulon, Saracens or Cardiff Blues, you go where the money is.
Despite their reputation, the Barbarians had to change from purely amateur and provide payments to players and agents to enable them to field teams worthy of their heritage and survive in the modern game.
Teams like Toulon, with owners like Boudjellal, are the equivalent of a middle aged man’s Ferrari, particularly in France where success earns them the respect and adulation of their local community.
For Toulon, success has meant buying foreign international players, kicking-off last week’s Champions Cup final with just one Frenchman in their starting XV.
That success is very myopic, good for Toulon but bad for French rugby as more and more foreign players fill the Top14 – but until the FFR finish their new stadium in Evry they will remain unable to finance a qualified player scheme like the RFU.
For the players, it is a chance to live in a beautiful part of the world and earn more money than they could playing anywhere else; even so, when contracts are renegotiated there is the usual brinkmanship with players talking of other offers from rival clubs, hardly the loyalty that is portrayed by someone that holds their club in huge respect.
Personally, I respect a player like Bath‘s No.8 Leroy Houston, who tacitly admits that he is in it for what he can get.
“I was grasping for anything,” he said. “They (ProD2’s Colomiers) offered me a contract but the amount was so low I could’ve stayed in Australia and worked in the mines and got better money. So I was weighing that all up and then came the call from Bath.” His comments have a breath taking honesty seldom heard.
Having suffered the non-renewal of his one-year contract at Bordeaux, Houston knows more than most that players are there to be used and discarded when, like a piece of meat, they reach their sell-by date.
I believe that all supporters understand players must make the most of any and every opportunity that comes their way, so please stop the fake sincerity.
After watching the game last week I don’t think Steffon Armitage did enough to suggest he can bring anything ‘special’ to the England World Cup party but with Mike Brown’s injuries still a worry, newly crowned European Player of the Year Nick Abendanon offers a better alternative than Alex Goode.