No Heineken Cup deal before season kicks off

The chief executive of the ERC has admitted the dispute over the Heineken Cup, which is threatening the tournament’s future, is unlikely to be resolved by the time the domestic rugby season kicks off in September.

Derek McGrath was speaking at the draws for the 2013/14 Heineken Cup and Amlin Challenge Cup at the Aviva Stadium, the last such occurrences before the existing accord governing the European competitions comes to an end next May.

The English and French clubs have been bullish in their demands for changes to structures, qualifying criteria and, in the former’s case, TV broadcasting rights, and little progress has been made between them, the Celtic nations and Italy after considerable and lengthy talks.

Four formal meetings have been held between all the interested parties — the ERC, the six unions, Premiership Rugby, Ligue Nationale de Rugby and Regional Rugby Wales — but to no avail.

It is believed the behind-the-scenes efforts to break the impasse and save the tournaments will continue next week when representatives of the unions will meet with those of the English clubs, but McGrath admitted yesterday that finding any agreement long-term will be difficult.

“There has been a lot of discussion and effort to try and address the differences, of which there are many,” he explained. “As the tournament has grown it’s finding it harder to find agreement. To find agreement is going to be difficult. There is no doubt about that.

“However, we are only halfway through the period of time we have given ourselves to find this, which is 2014. In an ideal world we would have made the provisions before next season kicks off, but that’s where it is right now. We are still discussing but are not close to agreement.

“It’s looking like it’s going to be hard [to resolve it before next season]. When you have such a disparate group and such a wide number who have to agree, it does make it difficult for everyone to come down… usually it’s the deadline that will enforce that.”

Boardroom issues concerning a tournament which will not resume for another four months don’t make for exciting stories when the national side and the Lions are touring North America and Australia, but European rugby has been pivotal to the successes achieved by those Irish players.

Even one season without the Heineken Cup or an equivalent would have devastating effects on the fragile ecosystem here, both on and off the field, but then the stakes are high for all of the parties concerned.

Next May has been pinpointed as the cut-off point but the reality of modern-day sports is that commercial agreements and event management is planned and decided months and sometimes years in advance.

A Heineken final, for example, takes over 12 months preparation.

“I would say at a human level it is not an ideal scenario,” said McGrath. “We have built something which is now very successful. In truth, publicly owned. Our partners have given massive support to the tournament so it’s not ideal for us to be effectively putting our dirty washing out in public.

“It would be much better if we could deal with these things in a respectful and proactive way. We can’t remove the tensions. You’ve got that dynamic. Our job is to manage as far as we can that we keep the communication around the table and we respect the various interests. We also try and separate the business from politics.”

Doing so is not easy in theory or in practice. That much is plain from plans drawn up by Minister for State at the Department of Health, Alex White, to introduce legislation which would ban drink companies like Heineken from sponsoring large sporting events in Ireland by 2020.

“This is not something that is new to us. We have had experience of this in France and we have been in discussions with Heineken about the possibility of this for a long time. So we are advanced in our preparation in the event that things happen. We will work with the regulating environment that is there. We will work with the decisions that are made. We recognise that we have had a great partnership but that this may change in time.”

Heineken Cup pool stages draw

Pool 1

Leinster (Pro 12 and Amlin Cup champions), Northampton, Ospreys, Castres (French champions)

Pool 2

Toulon (champions), Cardiff, Glasgow, Exeter

Pool 3

Toulouse, Saracens, Connacht, Zebre.

Pool 4

Clermont (last season’s beaten finalists), Harlequins, Scarlets, Racing Metro

Pool 5

Ulster, Leicester Tigers (English champions), Montpellier, Treviso

Pool 6

Munster, Perpignan, Edinburgh, Gloucester