well reports coming from france is they want to stay as it is.
only people making noise is the english clubs who are running out of money.
french clubs dont be banging on about religation as they send out second choice teams the week before a heineken cup game as they have the money.
look at the priemiership last season, world cup players gone, and some clubs were very thin, which is why exeter finish where they did

The boardmeeting with the ERC might be very short, more of a winding up exercise you could say.

That may have been before the ERC and Sky tried to imply the deal was illegal and that they had already come to an agreement about the future of the HC.

That statement from BT massively contradicts Premiership Rugby's position pre- BT deal announcement and what McCafferty was quoted as saying in various media reports as of yesterday:

from the guardian - www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2012/sep/12/pre...by-bt-deal-broadcast

"I want to emphasise that our objective is to remain in the Heineken Cup," he said. "The television deal we have agreed with BT will increase the size of the pot for everyone in Europe. Scotland and Italy will benefit: what we want is to increase the size of the cake rather than argue about slices.

"Our television contract will allow that and there could be a similar deal in France. Everyone benefits and far from looking to shrink the game in Europe, we propose to introduce a third competition to include teams from countries like Russia, Spain, Georgia and Portugal."

www.sportspromedia.com/notes_and_insight..._says_bt_vision_ceo/

We will set up a dazzling new European rugby tournament, says BT Vision CEO
12 September 2012 | Posted in Notes & Insights | By James Emmett | Contact the author

Following Tuesday’s announcement that BT Vision had paid UK£152 million for a package of Premiership Rugby rights, the company's chief executive, Marc Watson, has revealed his rugby strategy in an exclusive interview with SportsPro.

The rugby rights are the second major acquisition BT Vision has made this summer, having startled the industry with a surprise swoop for two key packages of English Premier League rights in June.

Both deals kick in from the beginning of the 2013/14 European soccer and rugby seasons.

"We want a channel that is a must-have channel for sports fans," Watson told SportsPro. "We saw in rugby an opportunity to own a sport exclusively, certainly at club level, and the rights that we’ve bought give us an opportunity to do that.

"We have the English Premiership; we think there’s lots of great potential there. And we are looking to set up, or at least help set up, a dazzling new European tournament, with a fantastic new format, with, we hope, all the best clubs. And we’ve secured, from the English Premiership, the rights to that for the UK. That tournament will be the successor to the Heineken Cup, which is a very successful tournament.

"The Heineken Cup runs until the end of next season. Our English Premiership rights kick in at the same time as our Premier League football rights next August. The Heineken Cup under its current contract has another season to run and that will be the end of it, and we’re looking to set up a brand new tournament from then. And we’ve already secured the rights to that.

"We see a great opportunity there. We’re hosting the Rugby World Cup in 2015 in the UK. It’s a great opportunity in the two years running up to that, we think, to grow the sport and for the first time rugby will appear in the Olympics in Rio in 2016. It’s a sport that’s got a long way to go. We were attracted by the idea of growing with it, and helping it to grow in the UK.

"Also, of course, with this deal comes a lot of very good live sport. It complements the football that we’ve bought very well from a scheduling perspective and it will help us to create, we think, a good, compelling channel, with good live sports over the course of the weekend and during the week, and over the course the season. And it will also help us to both deepen and broaden the appeal of the channel across the UK marketplace."

Responding to Watson's comments after this story had been published, Heineken's global sponsorship manager Tim Ellerton said, "European Rugby already has a dazzling tournament with a fantastic format - it's called the Heineken Cup and we are proud sponsors of that for over 17 years already."

bt in their press release speak of the hec coming to an end and their excitement at being an integral part of setting up a new and better european competition.(got that from munsterfans thread on this. full article there if anyone wants to post it here).

Here's my view of why the Prem and French clubs are doing what they are doing:

Ireland

The Irish (for a variety of reasons although the major one was the number of players available) have always been Region first club second based. This has been further skewed by the irregular funding of the provinces and the IRFU control of senior players thus allowing teams such as Munster and Leinster to have the cream of the Irish players, the ability to spend on external talent and the ability to 'rest' key players without fear during the regular season. Thus it is as has always been and from the beginning of the professional era the most effective for short to middle term success but in the long term can only affect expansion.

Wales

A strongly club based union, were persuaded by the Munster/Leinster models that the way forward was the province route. This has backfired hence Cardiff moving back to the Arms Park. This also means that a. attendances have dropped during the last couple of years and b. the mutterings about joining the Premiership. I would expect that should England and France break away, Wales would be the first to follow. Also that Ospreys and Dragons may disappear to their original club background with Cardiff and Scarlett’s becoming more of a club centered (privately owned) entities and may join the English leagues (division 1 in England losing a number of clubs to facilitate the change).

Scotland

Once one of the richest unions the SRFU squandered almost all their money trying to expand the rugby brand from its borders heartland. They will now follow the money and for the a top tier European competition will probably stay with the Pro 12 as they have effectively destroyed their grassroots support which will take years to mend and still leaves them without any financial muscle to be able to persuade others of their worth changing to their leagues (also travel would be a significant detrimental impediment) I would expect them to stay A La Old Firm inasmuch two provinces with all players and SRFU funding.

Italy

Having joined the six nations tournament they needed to expand, fast. One option would have been to join a number of clubs to the French League; however, I couldn't see the French being too supportive of this so the only way was provinces and the Pro 12. With the proposed third tier comp and Romanian and Russian team’s et al coming in time could be ticking for them.

So with these constrictions and the French and English clubs drawing the majority of funding they feel they can call the Pro 12's bluff for a better deal.

Prem Statement:

"Premiership Rugby notes the announcement by ERC concerning a broadcast deal with Sky Sports for the coverage of ERC competitions from 2014-15,"

"ERC and its Board acknowledged and accepted that notice was served on the ERC Accord on 1 June 2012 by Premiership Rugby and Ligue Nationale de Rugby which means the Accord comes to an end in 2014. Sky Sports have been made fully aware of this.

"As a result of notice being served, ERC is not entitled after 2014 to sell the broadcast rights of matches involving Premiership Rugby clubs. On 27 July 2012 ERC was reminded of this in writing, and this was copied to Sky Sports.

"We also note ERC's reference to its Board Meeting on 6 June 2012. No specific broadcast deal was presented or voted on at this or any subsequent ERC Board meeting. In any case any such deal could not have included matches involving Premiership Rugby clubs.

"ERC's suggestion that Premiership Rugby may be in breach of IRB regulations is wrong. Following Premiership Rugby's agreement with the RFU, dated 16 October 2007 Premiership Rugby has specific consent to control the broadcast rights of its clubs.

"The deal which Premiership Rugby has completed with BT is financially strong for Premiership Rugby clubs and future European competitions bringing up to £152m into the game over the next four years. When any future European competition launches in 2014, BT will have exclusive rights to broadcast the matches played by Premiership Rugby clubs."

www.ercrugby.com/eng/news/18589.php

All European rugby TV rights are controlled by the ERC as defined by the IRB.

The RFU are a bunch of chancers. I am really taking a strong disliking to this Mark McCafferty fella.

rossie wrote: what exactly does this mean? i thought that the erc held the bargaining rightd
for european competition. does this mean that they are pulling away completely?

God knows - the report is not very specific. They've sold the rights to a competition that might not exist and that they might not be in.

Of course there may be an out clause in this deal, in which case it's just a bargaining chip ahead of this week's ERC meeting.

Or (and this is my suspicion) it could be they don't give a damn if every team in the Rabo, as well as Cross Keys, Gala, Lansdowne, Naas, and the Bucaresti under 12s are entered into the HEC, as long as they get to negotiate the TV rights to their home games.

what exactly does this mean? i thought that the erc held the bargaining rightd
for european competition. does this mean that they are pulling away completely?

www.irishtimes.com/sports/rugby/2012/0912/1224323936277.html

After the playground posturing and nonsense talking that has characterised Englishs attitude to HEC negotiations thus far, they've finally done something genuinely worrying, and sold the rights to their European games from 2014 externally to the HEC.

I'd imagine fragmentation of TV rights would be great for Leinster and Munster, and an absolute disaster for ourselves....

While I believe change is needed in the European qualification structure, I have no real fear for the future of the Heineken. Really while the majority of the French clubs are too concerned with Top 14 matters to care about other competitions they still need the revenue streams European rugby can provide while I can't see the likes of Toulouse, Clermont, Stade or Toulon buying into anything but the real thing. The French clubs would have zero respect for an Anglo-French Cup.

The Anglo-Welsh Cup has trundled along for years and is a running joke. An Anglo-French cup would fare little better.

However, for the long term development of the tournament and for the good of the Rabo I think there needs to be an overhaul of the present qualification system.

Really if teams aren't able to deal with a couple of years here and there in the Amlin then you'd have to question do they deserve to survive? Glasgow and Edinburgh are now more than capable of qualifying for the HC off their own bat. Last year Edinburgh had a great European campaign but that was achieved through playing 2nd string sides in about 80% of their league games as there was no benefit for them to finishing 6th or 7th as opposed to 11th in comparison to what was to be gained from a HC run. Good for them but bad for the league and its credibility.

Treviso have shown well in the Heineken and are always capable of a surprise in the league and again have a settled enough setup in terms of squad and supporter base to withstand a year or two in the Amlin.

Aironi got no long term benefit from being in the Heineken twice, they had their one big day out against Biarritz but apart from that it didn't benefit them only to show how far off the pace they were.

We learned a lot from the Heineken last year and it helped us on and off the pitch but a competitive league where every point meant something would be also very worthwhile rather than battling up the league table with no real tangible benefit.

My view is that there should be 8 (1 from each country in Rabo and next best 4 for year 1 but afer that its everyone paddle their own canoe) from each league to start with inclusive of the Heineken Cup and Challenge Cup winners but that would evolve so that each league would pick up points for how well their teams fared so example a team win a group stage game they pick up 1 point for their league, while a team winning a Challenge Cup game pick up half a point for their league (similar to Uefa Coefficient in soccer) obviously you'd have to compensate for 14 French teams v 12 from other 2 leagues.

IMO the top performing league overall should earn another HC spot, with that spot being taken away from the worst performing league. I'd do away with teams piggy backing in on the back of successes for their nations which has served us well. It should be overall performance of a league in Europe which dictates things.

IMO the Challenge Cup needs serious reform so that its not the major drop off in standard (at group stage level) that it is at present. There are too many teams making up the numbers and too many meaningless games in the group phase. I'd go with 8 (2+2+4) automatically qualifying for the group stages with the bottom two in each league / newly promoted side(s) going through a pre-qualification play off against the Romanians, Spaniards, Russians or Italians with 4 teams to emerge. That way you'd get 12 (semi) serious teams with 2 groups of 6 and top teams to go straight into a home semi and the 2nd place teams meeting two teams coming down from the Heineken.

I believe a limited 3rd tier shield should be(re)developed with the losers of the opening round of Challenge Cup games with maybe the 3rd place teams in the Challenge Cup dropping down for the semi-finals to give a big home game for one of the developing sides coming through.

The present system does suit the Rabo teams and itd be great to see the competition being more competitive but that can only be done if teams are good enough regardless of what advantages the Rabo teams have. Bottom line is the English sides haven't delivered in recent times. Leicester are still in the top couple of teams in England but are no longer regarded as a serious HC winner, Wasps have almost gone to the wall, Harlequins were Amlin Champions and lost to us last year, in the main the Amlin sides haven't been up to it in the past few seasons. The salary cap hasn't helped but teams engineer ways around that too.

Only a handful of the French teams care and the others have just gone back. Toulouse would never have lost to a team like Edinburgh in a knockout game a couple of years back, Clermont are there but fail to seal the deal, Biarritz are gone back, Stade and Perpignan were in the Amlin last season. The likes of Racing and these teams maybe care for 1/2 games and if they lose a couple throw in the towel and are cannon fodder for the bigger teams.

Really regardless of any format changes, the competition will only improve if the sides in it improve. Simple but true.

rossie wrote: Its hard though to argue with AP and Top14 that our league is just as competitive when this is the case.

Do you watch the Top 14 and the Premiership? An answer of "I tried, but it was muck" is of course acceptable.

rossie wrote: this will mean a more competitive competition in the pool stages with the four group winners coming out to play the remaining 2nd place teams from Hec pool stages in qtrs.

Don't agree with you on much concerning this issue but there's no arguing on this, the presence of Italian team sin the pool has really skewed who gets home quarters and who's the best runners up in groups.

rossie wrote: Salmson- They arent talking about a breakaway league at expense of AP and Top14 but an anglo-french alternative to Hec until Pro12 comes to its senses(from their perspective).

Doesn't matter a toss. The soccer clubs were beaten back by UEFA, and the IRB has a grip on the game that UEFA and FIFA could only dream of.

I think we all know the IRFU position re resting players and in principle i agree with it. Its hard though to argue with AP and Top14 that our league is just as competitive when this is the case. They know the score in this regard and are calling us on it.

IMo they will probably get their way on most aspects of the upcoming "negotiations". The reality is that while there are question marks over the viability of the alternative anglo/french comp its pretty certain that the pro12 franchises will struggle/disappear(from current status) if there is no HEC. i agree that it probably end up a 7-7-8 with two cup winners forming a 24 team comp replicating the current format.Based on what was said during the week by AP im no longer sure that the compromise of top team from each nation and next 4 from league will be acceptable to them though and straight forward top 8 from league may be minimum required.
Imo the real reform may come in the Amlin. Reading between the lines this may well be reduced to a 16 team with the non Hec qualified Top14, AP and pro12 teams and two others from other qualification( italin league, other european qualification.) this will mean a more competitive competition in the pool stages with the four group winners coming out to play the remaining 2nd place teams from Hec pool stages in qtrs.

Salmson- They arent talking about a breakaway league at expense of AP and Top14 but an anglo-french alternative to Hec until Pro12 comes to its senses(from their perspective). The soccer proposal you mention was an actual alternative to Premier league, La liga etc. I suppose the nearest existing sporting equivelent to the soccer proposal is the Pro12.

While away from keyboard i discovered Top14 response to AP statement yesterday( also on planet rugby). Its much briefer in content but basically says that they want change to qualification and scheduling? but emphasise that it must be sorted by november at the latest. He also states there is room for negotiation but now. Me thinks its the old Good cop Bad cop routine.

rossie wrote: The Jonnie sextons/rogs of this league play around 8 games a season in the Pro12. that cant be good for the league.

The IRFU would argue having a fit Sexton for 8 games for each of the next 10 years is far better than breaking him in 3 years of continual play, or to it more succinctly, they'll see your Jonny Sexton and raise you Jonny Wilkinson.

As for the idea of a breakaway English/French competition, this simply isn't going to happen. The TV companies have wanted a European soccer league for years and it's come to naught. The risk involved in opting out of existing competitions, risking international bans on your players, getting forced through the CAS or courts with no guarantee of success is way too large, moreso in rugby (than football) where the balance of power lies so much more with the international federation and not with the clubs.

So instead you pout and threaten and force a few concessions.

rossie wrote: Im on the fence in regard to the one from each nation and 4 others from league scenario

I'm (selfishly) against it, as compared to a straight 8 qualification. It raises the bar in terms of league position by 1 or 2 places as I expect in future seasons we'll often have 3 or maybe all 4 Scottish and Italian teams behind us in the league. But if you don't have representatives from all 6 countries then is it really a European competition? Nobody thinks that Celtic, who will be in the Champions League group stages, are as good a team as Newcastle or Spurs, who aren't, but that's not the point, is it?