IRB seek answer to stayaway players

The International Rugby Board have pledged to set up a working party to try and find a solution to the ‘unacceptable’ loss of key players by some of the emerging nations.

South Sea Island trio Fiji, Samoa and Tonga have all been hit by the withdrawal of vital members of their squad for the forthcoming World Cup after deciding they could not afford to abandon lucrative domestic contracts for the two month duration of the competition.

Though officials of all three countries have expressed their frustration at the situation, the IRB has been powerless to act because none of them will register a formal complaint for fear of jeopardising the players’ chances of gaining employment elsewhere.

However, IRB chairman Syd Millar has acknowledged the situation is not good for the game, especially as it has substantially weakened three of the teams most likely to give the tournament a much-needed upset.

And, though he could offer no immediate solution, he has vowed to investigate every possible avenue to ensure there is no repeat of the situation when France host the next World Cup in 2007.

“Not only is the situation highly undesirable, it is also unacceptable and undermines the quality and integrity of international rugby and therefore the game at all levels,” he said.

“The IRB has sanctions available which include fines, suspensions and the docking of points but we can only act when certain pre-conditions are fulfilled, which means the Unions who feel they are suffering actually report the matter to us and ask us to take some action.

“It’s not difficult to understand why players from poorer countries are electing to play for clubs in richer ones. We also recognise that clubs don’t want to lose their players and the players don’t want to lose their income.

“A solution to the problem is not easy to find which is why I am proposing the formation of a heavyweight working party comprising not just a few familiar rugby faces but also including external economic advisers.

“It will be their job to examine this issue even more carefully and to make recommendations within a year.”

Despite his observations, Miller claimed the problem wasn’t a big as some critics have claimed and even the loss of a couple of key men shouldn’t make the smaller nations any less competitive.

Though it is difficult to see the wisdom of that argument, Miller had a point when he said a suggestion that the IRB should pay the wages of the players affected out of central World Cup funds was ’too simplistic’.

“Rugby World Cup has three key objectives,” he said.

“First, to provide rugby fans with a terrific spectacle. Second, to provide nations with an opportunity to showcase its skills and finally, but most importantly, to generate money in order to fund the development of rugby around the world. That means funding the very nations who are unable to send their players to this tournament.

“We should not forget that those countries have benefited from substantial grants over the course of the last few years and they will continue to do so.

“But they will only receive those grants if we continue to generate substantial surpluses from RWC.

“Even if we wanted to pay those players to turn up, we couldn’t afford to. In such a situation, every Union in the world would consider that it too should be the recipient of further handouts.

“We would quickly discover that there was no money to distribute to the Unions and no development budget.”