Dawson: boycott ‘catastrophic’ for Irish game
“It will be very serious for Irish teams in the short term,” Dawson said last night. “It will be the same for all of us; there will be no exceptions for the Irish teams, all of whom have to work within a specific budget from year to year.
“For instance, there are five particular games every year, the three guaranteed Heineken Cup matches and the ties against Ulster and Munster, from which we earn a lot of our income. The potential loss of Heineken Cup games would be a huge blow. Then, of course, our sponsors have built-in penalty clauses in the event of not competing on the big stage.”
In the longer term, Mr Dawson observed: “There are wider implications for the game, not just here but in Wales and Scotland too. It has taken a long time for this competition to come to where it is today; to build the brand that makes it one of the most recognisable and popular tournaments in the world. To see that lost because of a power struggle is appalling.
“From the rugby perspective, one has to look at the danger of us not being able to sustain the professional game that has allowed us to compete so favourably at international level these last number of years.
“If we don’t have good professional club rugby, then it’s obviously going to weaken the national side.
“The game in England and Wales will, no doubt survive, but the rest of the countries could find themselves going down the tube.
“This appears to be all about power between the English clubs and the RFU, and it seems it suits the French to support it because of their views on fixture congestion next season.”
Mr Dawson pointed to the possible irony that the French and English leagues could be damaged as well.
“There is a serious danger that their respective competitions will become less competitive. Right now, the clubs battle it out to the bitter end because every one of them wants to make it to the Heineken Cup.
“But in this pull-out situation, bar the clubs fighting for titles or to avoid relegation, many of them will have no incentive to be competitive. What would a team in sixth or seventh place, with no chance of winning the title and in no danger of being relegated, have to gain?” he asked.
Anger at the boycott is mounting in Wales too, but last night Welsh rugby chief Roger Lewis insisted the WRU are not pressing the panic button despite the future of the Heineken Cup being in serious doubt.
But Lewis says contingency plans are already in place to deal with the expected financial fall-out following the tournament’s dramatic collapse.
He said: “We’ve made contingency plans with the regions and we have already met with the four regions to discuss possible implications of any change in European competitions. We have put in place a range of plans to limit any shortfall.
“It’s still early days though and it still remains up the air. We are looking at a number of different options as a union and we will work our way through this together in Wales to come out of it.
“Any potential loss of revenue is obviously a concern but these are the challenges we face in a professional game and there is no panic. Nobody should be alarmed.”
Welsh rugby has struggled to clear huge debts since the construction of the Millennium Stadium for the 1999 World Cup that eventually saw the controversial closure of the Celtic Warriors region in 2003.
Stuart Gallagher, chief executive of Heineken Cup semi-finalists Llanelli Scarlets, believes each of the remaining four Welsh regions now face a deficit of up to half-a-million pounds from their budgets next season.
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