Nick Cain: Heineken Cup needs refreshing for the fans

Another Heathrow hotel meeting, and another Heineken cup impasse. That was the outcome from the battle of the suits this week as English and French club administrators tried to persuade their Celtic and Italian opposite numbers that the Heineken cup is not refreshing any parts of the European game, and needs urgent reform.
They failed to make a breakthrough, just as they had at the previous three meetings, with the Celtic and Italian block refusing to budge on their guarantee of two teams each qualifying for Europe’s elite tournament from Scotland and Italy, irrespective of their position in the Rabodirect Pro12.
To cut a long story short, the English and French want the Pro12 to have six automatic qualifiers – just as the Premiership and top 14 do – with the top four teams to qualify on merit, and the next two to qualify on nationality. The reason for not making qualification entirely meritocratic, as it is in England and France, is to ensure that rugby‘s geographical spread is maintained.
This means that if the top four sides are Irish or Welsh – and they are traditionally the strongest teams in the Celtic/Italian league – then the top teams in Scotland and Italy are given ring-fenced rights to qualify for the Heineken Cup, with one team each, irrespective of where they finish in the league.
It’s no surprise that the Scottish and Italian turkeys are not voting for Christmas, and that in the interests of Pro12 solidarity, nor are the Irish and Welsh. Nor is it any surprise that the Premiership and Top 14 clubs are sabre rattling, including far-fetched proposals for an Anglo-French link with Southern Hemisphere sides, including Argentine franchises based in Spain.
In terms of brinkmanship it is hardly inspired. However, something has to change. The main reason is that the Heineken Cup, a great flagship for European club rugby for over a decade, is badly in need of an overhaul because it is losing the key ingredient for any tournament that is worth its television airtime. It’s called uncertainty of outcome.
Nobody wants to pay through the nose – to Sky, or any other television company – to see matches which are virtually foregone conclusions.
There is also no doubt that the main culprits for the lack of competitiveness in the Heineken Cup reside mainly in the Pro12, with the Irish provinces a glaring and notable exception.
It is a fact, and an unpalatable one for the Pro12 administrators, that the Heineken Cup sinecures that have been granted to the Scottish, Italian, and to a lesser extent the Welsh, have resulted in them becoming uncompetitive – with the knock-on extending into international rugby where Scotland and Italy are concerned.
Benetton Treviso, Italy’s leading side, have been in the Heineken Cup since its inception in 1995. Over their 17 seasons in the tournament (before this campaign) Treviso had won just 17 of the 84 matches they have played. No Italian team have ever reached the quarter-finals, and their second qualifiers, in the guise of Aironi and Zebre, have been woefully inadequate.
The Scottish regions, Edinburgh and Glasgow, have been only marginally better. In their 16 seasons in the tournament Edinburgh had won 34 out of 91 matches before this season’s desultory pool stage showing, and had qualified for the knock-out stages just twice. A quarter-final in 2004 was followed by last season’s semi-final surge, although this was offset by Edinburgh finishing 11th in the Pro12. Glasgow, meanwhile, had failed to reach the knockout stages at all despite 13 seasons in Europe’s elite tournament, winning just 25 of their 79 matches.
The Welsh story is even more stark when you consider the proud tradition of the south Wales clubs pre-professionalism. Cardiff are the only Welsh team to have reached a Heineken Cup final, and that was in the truncated inaugural tournament in 1995–96. Cardiff lost narrowly to Toulouse, and, since then, despite numerous appearances by Welsh regions/clubs in the last eight (Cardiff seven quarter-finals and two semis, Scarlets seven quarter-finals and two semis, Ospreys three quarter-finals), a Welsh side has yet to be crowned champions of Europe.
A win ratio for each Welsh region of barely over 50 per cent reflects their inconsistency in the Heineken Cup, and the lack of inspiration and aspiration may help to explain why so many Welsh internationals are leaving to take the coin of the French.
This season’s Heineken Cup pool stages have a lacklustre feel to them, and once again the teams who are failing to give the tournament the competitive bite that it needs have been Scottish, Italian and Welsh. The reality is that the free pass that they are given by the non-competitive structure of the Pro12 means that their players and coaches are in a comfort zone.
This is not the case in Ireland mainly because there is fierce competition among the young players being produced by the vibrant Irish schools and interprovincial system, and their academy structures, for places in the Leinster, Munster, Ulster and Connacht squads.
We have had 17 years of protectionism for the Scottish, Italian and Welsh interests in the Heineken Cup, and it has not been to the benefit of either the tournament, nor the advancement of rugby in those countries.
It is time to change the model and – apart from the guarantee of one team each for the Scots and Italians – to remove the safety net so that they stand or fall on their merits, just as clubs in England and France have to.