A Pacific Islands-based Super Rugby team could be created next year under plans which would revolutionise the sport in the region.
The proposal, supported by World Rugby, is to create a new club side in the southern hemisphere’s flagship domestic tournament to stop the talent drain from the islands.
It is hoped that a squad made up of players from Fiji, Samoa – England’s opponents tomorrow – and Tonga would encourage the best talent produced by the Pacific Islands to remain there, and so represent their nations’ teams in international rugby.
“We are optimistic,” Mark Egan, head of competitions and performance for World Rugby, told iNEWS. “The Super Rugby option is something that will be seriously looked at. It’s on our agenda.”
An independent feasibility report, with World Rugby input, on how a Pacific Islands team could be incorporated into Super Rugby is due to be completed this year.
The report will then be submitted to the Pacific Islands Working Group and SANZAAR, the body which runs Super Rugby, in the first quarter of 2018. World Rugby then hopes that an agreement is reached next year so that the franchise could begin playing matches from the 2021 season, after the current broadcasting contract ends.
“If it is the right thing to do for the world game and the Pacific Islands you can be sure that we will be looking at every way – including financially – that we can possibly support it,” Egan said.
The new team would cost around £7.5m a year to run, which looms as the biggest obstacle. “It has to make sense from a rugby and commercial perspective,” Egan added. “The model would require private equity, government funding and sponsor support.”
World Rugby is likely to be able to give significant financial backing to the project, but, “the franchise would have to show that it will be able to operate in a financially sustainable way over an agreed period of time”. The finances of the three individual unions – Fiji, Samoa and Tonga – would also have to be protected.
Fiji, the Pacific nation with the best infrastructure, would be expected to be the home base for the squad. But it is hoped that some matches could be played in Samoa and Tonga.
The prospect of a Super Rugby team was welcomed by Fe’ao Vunipola, the chief executive of the Tonga Rugby Union. “I would support it wholeheartedly,” he said. Vunipola believes that it would lead to “more chance of the boys staying and living near home”.
SOURCE INEWS/PACNEWS
The proposal, supported by World Rugby, is to create a new club side in the southern hemisphere’s flagship domestic tournament to stop the talent drain from the islands.
It is hoped that a squad made up of players from Fiji, Samoa – England’s opponents tomorrow – and Tonga would encourage the best talent produced by the Pacific Islands to remain there, and so represent their nations’ teams in international rugby.
“We are optimistic,” Mark Egan, head of competitions and performance for World Rugby, told iNEWS. “The Super Rugby option is something that will be seriously looked at. It’s on our agenda.”
An independent feasibility report, with World Rugby input, on how a Pacific Islands team could be incorporated into Super Rugby is due to be completed this year.
The report will then be submitted to the Pacific Islands Working Group and SANZAAR, the body which runs Super Rugby, in the first quarter of 2018. World Rugby then hopes that an agreement is reached next year so that the franchise could begin playing matches from the 2021 season, after the current broadcasting contract ends.
“If it is the right thing to do for the world game and the Pacific Islands you can be sure that we will be looking at every way – including financially – that we can possibly support it,” Egan said.
The new team would cost around £7.5m a year to run, which looms as the biggest obstacle. “It has to make sense from a rugby and commercial perspective,” Egan added. “The model would require private equity, government funding and sponsor support.”
World Rugby is likely to be able to give significant financial backing to the project, but, “the franchise would have to show that it will be able to operate in a financially sustainable way over an agreed period of time”. The finances of the three individual unions – Fiji, Samoa and Tonga – would also have to be protected.
Fiji, the Pacific nation with the best infrastructure, would be expected to be the home base for the squad. But it is hoped that some matches could be played in Samoa and Tonga.
The prospect of a Super Rugby team was welcomed by Fe’ao Vunipola, the chief executive of the Tonga Rugby Union. “I would support it wholeheartedly,” he said. Vunipola believes that it would lead to “more chance of the boys staying and living near home”.
SOURCE INEWS/PACNEWS
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