Jeff Probyn’s column: Union right to ride roughshod over Leicester Tigers’ American dream

The question of who is running rugby in America came under the spotlight this week as Leicester Tigers were forced to cancel a  fixture in the USA. Tigers had been planning to play in Philadelphia against a team called the Rough Riders organised by the National Rugby Football League (NFRL), a commercial enterprise that hopes to set up the first professional Rugby Union league in America.
The game, had it taken place, would have been the first professional club game in America and the first step in
creating professional club rugby in what is one of the biggest untapped rugby markets in the world.
Despite popular belief, rugby has always had a major following in America with most colleges and universities having teams and USA Rugby, with over 88,000 registered players, is one of the biggest playing populations in the world.
However, the fact remains that they have massively underachieved since the heights of their Olympic success in 1924, mainly because rugby wasn’t a professional sport.
While there are many small local leagues it is only in recent years that there have been moves to create a national league, made possible because of professionalism. The costs and time of traversing the continent would be far too onerous for amateur teams to contemplate – but as full time professionals it would not be a problem.
NFRL were hoping that the recent boost in popularity created by the All Blacks game against the Eagles at Soldier Field in Chicago which attracted more than 61,000 spectators, would allow them to ‘piggyback’ an elite professional club game in August just before RWC starts.
If it had been allowed to go ahead it would have helped kick-start the new professional league planned for 2016 but it wasn’t and the question many will ask is why? With rugby in the USA at a crossroads and interest rapidly growing why would USA Rugby not sanction a game that could increase further interest and participation?
The answer, it turns out, is simple. NRFL are owned by a sports and entertainment company, called Rugby Law and are solely interested in the commercial side of the game and are not part of USA Rugby.  The Rough Riders team that Leicester had planned to play are not a registered USA Rugby team and none of their players are registered which, if you think about it, would make it impossible for USA Rugby to sanction the game.
Unlike PRL which was set up by the clubs that play in our Premiership to look after their interests, NRFL are actively creating clubs to play in a professional league that will be run and owned by Rugby Law. In many ways it will be a league set up similar to how American Football is structured, with a professional league that is separate from the amateur game without responsibility for development of the national or international game.
Similar in fact to the Kerry Packer-style professional circus that was threatening the whole of rugby shortly before the advent of the professional game, where a number of players were offered contracts to play in ‘Test matches’ arranged outside the control of World Rugby (IRB).
What is a surprise to me is that a team of Leicester’s standing would countenance a match against an unsanctioned team, particularly with the possible injury risks combined with the uncertainty as to whether current insurance would offer protection to players and club, should something go wrong.
The rush to get into a potentially expanding market is understandable with clubs looking to increase knowledge of their brand. Just as football clubs have taken to touring Asia to sell branded merchandise, so Premiership rugby clubs are seeking to do the same.
While it is in USA Rugby’s interest to encourage as many Premiership teams as possible to cross the water and play games against their registered clubs and to help with coaching clinics (as Leicester have in the past), it would be detrimental to the overall development of rugby as both an amateur and professional sport if it were to sanction games against unregistered professional teams.
With the start of Rugby World Cup now fewer than 100 days away, the first attempt at procuring a long-term legacy have been announced and includes an increase in the number of visits by professional players and coaches to schools to encourage participation and promote the values of the game.
The RFU and clubs already undertake much of this development work but for very different reasons.
To a certain extent, the community work undertaken by various Premiership teams is as much about brand awareness and fan loyalty as rugby development.                                                                                                                           Clubs send players into schools to help inspire young children to play the game but as most Premiership clubs don’t have a mini or junior section and usually only two senior teams, any participation by the children (and parents) in that club’s activities would be as spectators.
A much better way to inspire a legacy would be for the RFU to link a number of grassroots clubs of all levels with schools, to encourage children to join those clubs. Professional rugby is not for all and the disappointment for young players that miss out can result in them leaving the sport.
In my opinion to make a legacy work, the RFU should stop the focus on the Premiership and encourage as many kids as possible to join grass root clubs but first find a method of helping clubs pay for those extra teams.