Jeff Probyn: Surely it’s best for Wales that North’s in England not France

Why is it that when clubs or regions have a disagreement with their Unions they always appear to threaten a new cross- border competition? Whether it’s the English clubs with their French counterparts or the Welsh with the English, whenever there is a dispute the threat of a new competition is aired even though there is no space in the season for it.
As the Welsh regions go full tilt for their Union it seems that there is a serious problem in Welsh rugby eventhough they have just won the Six Nations. How can a country’s rugby survive and prosper if their senior clubs/regions are in total conflict with the Union?
The regions have been in contact with the Premiership about the possibility of a new Anglo-Welsh competition despite the fact that the LV= Cup still exists, although both the English and Welsh use it only as a development tool.
The truth is, that all this talk of conflict comes down to one simple thing – and that is money and how it is distributed.
The Unions are still the main revenue generators in the game but it is how that revenue is spent that is the cause of almost all the friction between the Unions and their professional teams as they try to fund the professional game.
The Welsh regions were formed to keep Wales competitive when the game went professional by concentrating their talent, also because the club game in Wales could not afford a truly professional league, despite a history of ‘boot money’.
That said, the majority of professional rugby nations cannot afford a professional club league (the Southern Hemisphere Unions use regions and central contracts) and even those that can, including England and France, are totally dependent on the generosity of owners prepared to fund the shortfall in the revenue generated through the gates receipts.
A large part of any shortfall is down to player wages and even though they are nowhere near the levels of football, it’s still more than the game can afford.
The row over George North and whether Scarlets should have the right to sell his contract to another professional body seems a little strange, because if he was being sold to another Welsh region would the WRU complain?
The fact that he was talking to North- ampton seems to be the issue and yet from all the countries he could have gone to, England is probably the best for Wales.
The distance is not too great, so it should be possible for him to include a release clause in his contract for international duty that would make him free when Wales call and he’d be playing in a more competitive league than the Rabo Pro 12.
With James Hook (Perpignan), Mike Phillips (Bayonne) and captain Gethin Jenkins (Toulon) all playing abroad why should North’s move cause such a furore -particularly as it could make him a better player?
The creation of the professional game was always going to create a market for players and the best players will always attract the best offers for their services.
With professional playing careers relatively short, who can blame anyone for maximising his earning potential by taking the best offer wherever it comes from? But as all players know the Union has the right to establish an ‘at home’ selection policy, picking only players who ply their trade within their home Union.
In reality, for countries with a player base the size of Wales, it would probably not be sensible to bring in such a rule, given that they need all their best players available to field a winning team.
As the Welsh have shown when they field a full side they can beat anybody – but they have little strength in depth, so the dispute with the regions will need to be solved and, with a bit of extra cash from the Six Nations winnings, I’m sure it will.
Talking of money brings me to the monster that currently haunts the game in England, the World Cup.
The vision of this year’s Six Nations, with the pitches being torn to pieces at the Stade de France, the Aviva and the Millennium, was enough to make at least one of the potential football venues have a change of heart.
Manchester United’s withdrawal as a potential venue has blown a hole in the planning of the 2015 event.
The £80m demanded by RWC Ltd has forced the RFU to look outside rugby for venues capable of holding sufficient people to balance the books. The 48 games played during the Cup must generate an average of £1.7m each in profit just to pay RWC, so obviously, the smaller the ground the higher the ticket price.
Unfortunately even Leicester, the club with the largest number of season-ticket holders in the English club game, do not have a ground with anywhere near a big enough capacity to make ticket prices attractive for the minor nation games, unless they gave its use free of any charges but, even then, the tickets would have to be around £70.
Grounds with a capacity of around 30,000 would have to charge an average of £60 per ticket to raise the £1.7m and that would not include the costs of ground hire, policing and various other sundry costs that accompany staging a major sporting event (games at Twickenham cost around £250,000 each to stage).
Fortunately, all the major nation games will be sold out at a premium and by the time you add in broadcasting and sponsorship sales, the RFU will not have a problem meeting their commitments with a healthy profit almost guaranteed.
Unfortunately, though, as usual none of the extra money will be used to provide subsidies for ordinary rugby fans to get a ticket for the final!