Nigel Wray warns the IRB a Euro Cup veto would end in court

Saracens chairman Nigel Wray has warned that any attempt by the International Rugby Board to veto the proposed Rugby Champions Cup will end up defeated in court.
Premiership Rugby and their French counterparts, Ligue Nationale de Rugby, have officially ended talks with Heineken Cup organisers ERC, declaring the competition dead beyond this season and making crystal clear their intention to set up a new tournament from 2014.
The Anglo-French alliance has extended invitations to teams from other European nations to join, but have indicated they will go it alone should that prove fruitless.
IRB chief executive Brett Gosper has stated his organisation would not support an Anglo-French competition, saying: “We don’t think it’s in the interests of the game a competition such as that, no. We don’t believe in an Anglo-French competition in itself.”
But Wray has hit back at world rugby‘s governing body, insisting that what the English and French clubs do is their own business alone and not the IRB’s.
“Mr Gosper of the IRB has said a few things, but I don’t care. He’s not a Saracens shareholder as far I’m aware,” Wray retorted. “He said they won’t sanction our new competition if it only involves the English and French. Okay, we’ll see you in court then, mate!
“The IRB’s stance has to be illegal. It doesn’t take a genius to work out it’s anti-competitive under European Law.
“We could be in engineering or pharmaceuticals, all we want to do is run a business. You can’t have somebody called the IRB saying you can’t take an order from Toulouse, but you can take one from Dublin. Sorry Mr Gosper, but it’s none of your business!”
Wray envisages no circumstances in which the Rugby Champions Cup can be stopped.
In fact, he believes that not only will the Irish, Welsh, Scottish and Italian sides quickly jump on board, teams from South Africa may soon join the party as well.
South African Super 15 franchises are currently reviewing their future participation in Super 15, with a split from Australia and New Zealand a distinct possibility.
That, according to Wray, whose Sarries already have strong South African connections, could have further exciting implications for the Rugby Champions Cup.
“I have no idea when, but of course we’ll play South African teams,” Wray predicts. “We’re in the same time zone, so why would the South Africans want to keep going to Australia and New Zealand for games played at breakfast time with rotten TV revenue?
“They will end up playing with us and, at the end of the day, what does the customer want? People want to see big games. Trying to stop what’s happening is like Canute and the sea.”
Wray goes further, adding: “I’d go the whole hog by bringing the Welsh regions into the Premiership as well. People will pay to watch Saracens v Cardiff in the Aviva, but not the LV= Cup. Big games, that’s what the future’s about.”
Meanwhile, the schedule for the new Champions’ Cup is being drawn up to start this time next year with or without the Celtic countries.
The streamlined 20-club Anglo-French model will feature significant changes to the tournament as run by the Union-controlled board of ERC Ltd for the last time this season with the English and French clubs.
“We agree with the French clubs in wanting the quarter-finals played before the Six Nations, not after it,” said Mark McCafferty, chief executive of Premier Rugby Ltd.
An earlier quarter-final will mean an earlier final, in April instead of May. “We have long been advocates of playing the pool matches in two blocks of three weekends, rather than three blocks of two weekends,” McCafferty said.  Another week of political posturing, threats and counter-threats ends with at least one of the four Welsh regions hardening its attitude over the financial calamity of not being allowed to join the English and French next season.
“The big question for the Welsh Rugby Union is this: ‘What are they going to do to make up the £1.5m per region that we will lose by not having a European competition?’,” a Welsh source told The Rugby Paper following last week’s disclosure that two of the four Welsh regions had declared an interest in joining the new tournament.
“That’s the crux of the matter and sooner or later that question will have to be answered.    The English and French can afford to stay out of Europe.   We can’t.   We’d be facing financial ruin without it.
“A lot of the English and French proposals are acceptable as far as we’re concerned.   Their clubs run their domestic competitions and we don’t have an issue with the same clubs running European club rugby.”
Each side in the power-struggle between Union and clubs for control of the European club game has spent the week bombarding the other.    While club owners on either side of the Channel have been queuing up to pronounce the ‘death’ of ERC, the Unions who run ERC, with the significant exception of the RFU, have been threatening to ban any club for stepping out of line.
In quoting their fall-back position of no permission without the approval of the IRB, none of the Celtic Unions were saying anything new.   Neither did the French Rugby Federation when president Albert Camou repeated their position in refusing to approve any cross-border competition other than the one run by ERC.
The one difference this time is that the two richest players in the French domestic game, Racing Metro owner Jacky Lorenzetti and his Toulon counterpart Mourad Boudjellal, let it be known that they would be ploughing ahead regardless.
Lorenzetti went far beyond a reinvented European Cup in spelling out his ambition for a world club championship, a vision revealed by McCafferty in The Rugby Paper six weeks ago.
PETER JACKSON & NEALE HARVEY