Brilliant Blanco getting too big for his boots

THERE’S hardly a rugby fan who hasn’t been blown away by the on field exploits of the legendary Serge Blanco.

Many sound judges rate the Frenchman the finest full-back the game has produced. He was blessed with all the gifts, defensively he couldn’t be faulted, but it was when he counterattacked that he brought friend and foe to their feet. The try he scored in the dying minutes of the 1987 World Cup semi-final against Australia is part of the game’s folklore.

He wasn’t just a classy, out-of-the-ordinary player, he was a character as well. His propensity for stealing a smoke just before going on the pitch for a big game was well-known, and when it was finally time to hang up his boots after he had won 93 caps between 1980 and ‘91, he turned to the administrative side of the game, while also setting up a chain of highly successful sports shops in the south of France.

But Blanco gradually became more and more influential until finally becoming boss of the club game in France. Not surprisingly, some of his views aroused controversy at home and abroad. Sometimes he got his way, more often than not he had to back off in the face of strong opposition.

Now he’s at it again. Yesterday’s Irish Examiner revealed that Blanco, in his role as president of the French League, has threatened that clubs under his jurisdiction could boycott the Heineken Cup in the 2007-8 season unless a number of demands are met. Given the already crowded schedule, he was surely only flying a kite when advocating a World Club Cup involving 32 sides from the two hemispheres.

However, it will be fascinating to see how his words go down not just with the French clubs but their English counterparts, who invariably seem to be spoiling for a fight. I recall asking Warren Gatland, then London Wasps’ coach, if he had even the slightest sympathy for Munster and their fans after his side had edged home in a Heineken Cup semi-final in front of a colourful, full house at Lansdowne Road a couple of years ago.

“Not in the slightest,” he snapped, before going on to rant about a qualification system that allowed the Irish provinces safe passage into the competition every year, whereas the English clubs qualified through their placings in the highly competitive Premiership.

Now, Blanco seems to be singing from the same sheet. He wants the English and French clubs to take over the organisation of the Heineken Cup in order “to maximise its commercial potential.” He wants the number of Celtic League clubs reduced from nine to six thus allowing a greater Anglo French participation.

For now, the English are keeping their powder dry and on the surface anyway are claiming that Blanco’s idea could adversely affect the interest in their own domestic Premiership. However, if Blanco can come up with a scheme that will show them the money, then everything opens up again. Either way, Blanco insists that France must have a greater say in the running of the event and seems to make an ominous point when claiming that “we can do without the European Cup, the clubs will not lose money and we would take our losses.”

Sad, though, isn’t it, that a man of Blanco’s esteem should become so like the English and think only of themselves and filthy lucre?

How readily they forget the impact made by Munster and their fans, and how impoverished it would be were they to be precluded. Nor should the atmosphere generated by Ulster on their way to victory in 1999 be overlooked. That was the year England boycotted the event and we hardly noticed.

Clearly a competition dominated annually by the big money clubs like Toulouse and Stade Francais would quickly lose its lustre.

You wonder, too, how Heineken, the most loyal and generous of sponsors, view this latest threat to the tournament. Just as their own Murphys Stout pulled the plug on the Irish Open golf tournament after nine years, they will almost certainly do likewise with the Heineken Cup sooner or later. Should anybody follow Blanco’s lead, it could hasten such a decision.