The HC negotiations look to be going down to the wire.....

First topic message reminder :

http://m.guardian.co.uk/sport/2012/dec/11/english-french-clubs-heineken-cup-talks

Little or no progress appears to have been made to date despite various deals being offered to the French clubs. Which side of the demands/debate is going to come up with an offer or conceed on individual issues??

I don't particularly like the idea of an Anglo French competition but is it any nearer?

Prepare for a bland media statement tomorrow.......

thebandwagonsociety wrote:I'm just going to enjoy the final HCup games until they are all gone.

England and France don't like the little Irish boys winning the competition so will look to set up their own competition.

Competition is all well and good but when it's been a few years since England and France have won the thing, that changes.

Proof? Surely you have proof, because if you don't that would be one of the most retarded comments i've read all day.

thebandwagonsociety wrote:I'm just going to enjoy the final HCup games until they are all gone.

England and France don't like the little Irish boys winning the competition so will look to set up their own competition.

Competition is all well and good but when it's been a few years since England and France have won the thing, that changes.

The new competition between will be on BT Vision, and all historic highlights will show classic Bath, Leicester, Wasps, Toulouse, Brive images. All references to places like Leinster/Munster/Ulster will be forbidden. It will be hailed as the best competition in the world ever and propaganda machine will mock the myth that there were once 'irish provinces'.

Cheers everybody... it was bloody good while it lasted.

This is clearly the reason because they didn't complain and threaten to pull out in 2007 when only Munster and Ulster had won it once each and all other winners had been English or French (with 3 English semi-finalists that year).

We keep hearing over and over that the Irish finish top of the PRO12 so why would this effect them? Either the English and French teams have a point and the PRO12 is just a training compeitition or the Irish won't be effected. Either way you're talk out your rear end

Would the Jeff be better off in two tiers of 8 clubs?


Please justify your answers without contradicting any sentiments previously voiced toward your standing on the HC.

HammerofThunor wrote:

thebandwagonsociety wrote:I'm just going to enjoy the final HCup games until they are all gone.

England and France don't like the little Irish boys winning the competition so will look to set up their own competition.

Competition is all well and good but when it's been a few years since England and France have won the thing, that changes.

The new competition between will be on BT Vision, and all historic highlights will show classic Bath, Leicester, Wasps, Toulouse, Brive images. All references to places like Leinster/Munster/Ulster will be forbidden. It will be hailed as the best competition in the world ever and propaganda machine will mock the myth that there were once 'irish provinces'.

Cheers everybody... it was bloody good while it lasted.

This is clearly the reason because they didn't complain and threaten to pull out in 2007 when only Munster and Ulster had won it once each and all other winners had been English or French (with 3 English semi-finalists that year).

We keep hearing over and over that the Irish finish top of the PRO12 so why would this effect them? Either the English and French teams have a point and the PRO12 is just a training compeitition or the Irish won't be effected. Either way you're talk out your rear end

I'm not the only poster who uses their rear end to speak. On your final point, I don't see how the Irish wouldn't be affected by the English & French having a Franglo Cup and the HCup ending.

AlastairW wrote:

thebandwagonsociety wrote:I'm just going to enjoy the final HCup games until they are all gone.

England and France don't like the little Irish boys winning the competition so will look to set up their own competition.

Competition is all well and good but when it's been a few years since England and France have won the thing, that changes.

Proof? Surely you have proof, because if you don't that would be one of the most retarded comments i've read all day.

Where is my proof? I left it around here somewhere...... did anybody see it? I must include proof on this thread because every comment in here so far must have been written by posters who have been in the meetings that have been discussing the next european rugby competition, its structure and related aspects. All I have is my own two cents worth, I left it around here somewhere.... did anybody see it?

Rugby Fan wrote:The French and English clubs served notice because they were being offered no accomodation at all by the Rabo unions. If the PRL proposals outlined in the Telegraph are accepted, then that would constitute a major change.

Did they? or did they start the negotiations with this stance of " we want this and if we don't get it we are taking are ball away" I have seen no meaningful negotiation especially from the PRL group

All the proposals are to the English and French advantage, all to the disadvantage of the Pro12 teams

If numbers need to be reduced then England and France have to give up places as well

If they think its unfair they have to fight relegation as well - then ringfence their league.

Put the bar stewards in a two-star motel on no expenses. And charge them $500 dollars a day increasing by $100 dollars each day out of their own pockets until they find a consensus.

This is beginning to look like an EU emergency meeting of fat plutocrats having to make emergency budgetary plans. Lazy sods.

Surprise, surprise.....no agreement has been reached and they are now talking about reconvening on February 6th next year.

That Anglo / French cup competition gets nearer with the passing of each of these non event meetings.

What Anglo French cup? that ain't gonna happen.

Either the PRL backs down and actually negotiates rather than listing demands that are totally unrealistic or there will be an HC without them

Interesting read. I really thought that the PRL backing down and allowing all nations to have at least one team remaining in the HEC was a great bargaining tool for them.

Though I hear that the English and French demands for shares have not been seen as fair by the RP12 unions, neither are some of the RP12 nations happy with reducing the number of teams as the French want.

To be continued...

What a shame

TJ wrote:What Anglo French cup? that ain't gonna happen.

Either the PRL backs down and actually negotiates rather than listing demands that are totally unrealistic or there will be an HC without them

No you are correct the French have absolutely ruled out a French / English cup.

thebandwagonsociety wrote:

HammerofThunor wrote:

thebandwagonsociety wrote:I'm just going to enjoy the final HCup games until they are all gone.

England and France don't like the little Irish boys winning the competition so will look to set up their own competition.

Competition is all well and good but when it's been a few years since England and France have won the thing, that changes.

The new competition between will be on BT Vision, and all historic highlights will show classic Bath, Leicester, Wasps, Toulouse, Brive images. All references to places like Leinster/Munster/Ulster will be forbidden. It will be hailed as the best competition in the world ever and propaganda machine will mock the myth that there were once 'irish provinces'.

Cheers everybody... it was bloody good while it lasted.

This is clearly the reason because they didn't complain and threaten to pull out in 2007 when only Munster and Ulster had won it once each and all other winners had been English or French (with 3 English semi-finalists that year).

We keep hearing over and over that the Irish finish top of the PRO12 so why would this effect them? Either the English and French teams have a point and the PRO12 is just a training compeitition or the Irish won't be effected. Either way you're talk out your rear end

I'm not the only poster who uses their rear end to speak. On your final point, I don't see how the Irish wouldn't be affected by the English & French having a Franglo Cup and the HCup ending.

The idea isn't for a Franglo cup. It's for a removal for automatic qualification for the PRO12 unions. The English proposal is for (basically as things stand) an Franglo cup with the Irish sides and a smattering of Welsh sides. So how would the Irish sides be affected by this? Now (in the future if they went Poopie they obvious suffer).

Irony of certain people intransigent viewpoints based on preconceived ideas who are not interested in learning from what others have to say or flexing their extreme positions whilst accusing various unions of not being willing to negotiate would be chucklesome it wasn't so depressingly tedious and predictable.

Peter Seabiscuit Wheeler wrote:Irony of certain people intransigent viewpoints based on preconceived ideas who are not interested in learning from what others have to say or flexing their extreme positions whilst accusing various unions of not being willing to negotiate would be chucklesome it wasn't so depressingly tedious and predictable.

+1. Unfortunately, the unions themselves appear to be of a similar mindset to the posters - intransigent and unwilling to negotiate.

maestegmafia wrote:

TJ wrote:What Anglo French cup? that ain't gonna happen.

Either the PRL backs down and actually negotiates rather than listing demands that are totally unrealistic or there will be an HC without them

No you are correct the French have absolutely ruled out a French / English cup.

No they haven't. The quote from Wolff that this claim was based on (it was certainly reported as being ruled out) was

"The English put a lot of pressure on us in the past few months to accept the idea of an alternative Franco-Anglo club competition almost like it was a condition before discussing anything else," Wolff told AFP. "That's not what we wanted to do. Save a catastrophic failure at the negotiations, which I don't think will happen, we want to play with the Celts and with the English."

http://www.espnscrum.com/heineken-cup-2012-13/rugby/story/169973.html

So "save a catastrophic failure at the negotiation" there will be no Franglo Cup. Which means if the negotiations break down (they don't get what they want as minimum) then they would consider a Franglo Cup (or a Freltic one).

TJ, again you going on and on about how the PRL refused to negotiate at all. Maesteg has already pointed out their 'massive U-turn'. So now not only is there no evidence they WON'T make concessions, there is evidence that they WILL. So surprise surprise the initial proposals were just that, proposals. As most sensible people said at the time any agreement would be somewhere between what all parties want.

As before, all parties will negotiate to get the best they can for themselves. Whatever point is agreed on will be the one we go for. Any agreement that does go forward is just that, an agreement...by all parties. I doubt we'll get any agreement whatsoever until the alternatives become serious. Either a Franglo Cup will force the other unions to make their play or something else will force the French or English to make theirs. We're too far out for the pressure to hit home.

Peter Seabiscuit Wheeler wrote:Irony of certain people intransigent viewpoints based on preconceived ideas who are not interested in learning from what others have to say or flexing their extreme positions whilst accusing various unions of not being willing to negotiate would be chucklesome it wasn't so depressingly tedious and predictable.

You know me well (wait, are you talking about me or the unions?)

Oh, out of curiosty when is the date for the wire? I definitely agree with the view of the title, this will go to 23:59:59 on the day that it all has to be signed by, possibly even 3-4 days past that deadline.

Maesteg, you should know better....and as there are lots of stereotyping of greedy English clubs against holy Unions, another one is, what the French say and what they do are very different things......
Alternative competitions as a fall back were discussed well over 12 months ago - Bruce Craig has admitted as much.

hammer of thunor - what masive u turn? Seriously the only thing I have seen is instead of top six in the rabo its top 4 plus the best italian dna the best scottish -

this is no massive u turn.

tehre has been no seriuous negotiation from the PRL group at all.

apparantly they must have 6 representaives in the cup, france must have six and the prl can only have six. there is no backing down on the BT deal.

So please - where is this "massive u turn" and where have they offered any meaningful concessions

Based on what they've said, the English and French clubs have two aims:
1) Improve the standard of the tournament by ensuring that everyone has to qualify.
2) Improve the overall value of the tournament to all the unions by bringing new TV deals to the table, while also ensuring that the share taken by each union is more closely aligned to the revenue they bring in.

English and French clubs already have to qualify and only 50% of them do so. Scottish and Italian teams don't have to qualify at all. At least 75% of Welsh and Irish teams get a place. So to achieve 1, there has to be a move to a model where only the best performing Celtic/Italian teams qualify.

Moving from an insistence on strict meritocracy (top n qualify) to one where each union is guaranteed one team in the tournament is a pretty big concession.

The money position is effectively saying "we can all earn more money in absolute terms, but we will take a bigger proportion in relative terms because BT are paying all this money to screen English teams' games". Beyond that, no-one's said anything public, so we don't know whether they've refused to negotiate or been willing to make big concessions.

What offends me here is the attitude that because England and France want to change the tournament they are automatically in the wrong. This is a commercial negotiation in which there are issues of national union power, pride and finances, mixed up with club/province/region finances, mixed up with mutual interest in creating a successful tournament. That's never going to be easy to resolve and there will be entrenched positions on all sides.

The Celtic side is, I assume, quite happy with an arrangement in which they get proportionally more places and more money relative to the number of teams and the revenue they bring.

The English and French are unhappy that the commercial rights have been underexploited (and they have been - the BT deal proves that unless there's another, bigger deal that ERC hasn't told anyone about), that their proportion of the revenue doesn't align to their drawing power and that they play a mix of weak teams who don't have to qualify and strong teams who also don't have to qualify have more options to concentrate only on the HEC.

Neither side wants to budge. That's understandable. It may even be tactically sensible. All we know at this stage is that the English and French have offered a concession against what they'd ideally like, and it hasn't been accepted.

Whats hard to understand is the position of the English fans.

Answer this
1) why should the rabo teams lose 40% of their representation and the PRL none?

2) why should he Rabo teams alter their structure to their disdvantage? this structure was
created to dovetail nicely withthe HC

3) why will the PRL not enter any meaningful negotiations?

this is clearly a naked power grab by the PRL to benefit the PRL owners. the rest is a smokescreen an as we have no real details of the BT deal we do not know that it means more money - infact the best analysius I have seen of it shows the extra money is very small.

Buyt please - answer the three quyestions

thebandwagonsociety wrote:

AlastairW wrote:

thebandwagonsociety wrote:I'm just going to enjoy the final HCup games until they are all gone.

England and France don't like the little Irish boys winning the competition so will look to set up their own competition.

Competition is all well and good but when it's been a few years since England and France have won the thing, that changes.

Proof? Surely you have proof, because if you don't that would be one of the most retarded comments i've read all day.

Where is my proof? I left it around here somewhere...... did anybody see it? I must include proof on this thread because every comment in here so far must have been written by posters who have been in the meetings that have been discussing the next european rugby competition, its structure and related aspects. All I have is my own two cents worth, I left it around here somewhere.... did anybody see it?

Have you checked next to your ludicrous one-eye opinions? or underneath them? Surely little Irish boys can't have that many places it could be? Let me know when you dig it up.

TJ wrote:Whats hard to understand is the position of the English fans.

Answer this
1) why should the rabo teams lose 40% of their representation and the PRL none?

2) why should he Rabo teams alter their structure to their disdvantage? this structure was
created to dovetail nicely withthe HC

3) why will the PRL not enter any meaningful negotiations?

this is clearly a naked power grab by the PRL to benefit the PRL owners. the rest is a smokescreen an as we have no real details of the BT deal we do not know that it means more money - infact the best analysius I have seen of it shows the extra money is very small.

Buyt please - answer the three quyestions

1) Out of mercy for the Scotts Welsh Italians and Connacht?

2) The structure is damaging for European rugby and threatens to leave the top Irish provinces saddled with dead duck. The current HC set up was not set up on the basis of what is there now at all, for starters there were additional Welsh and Scottish regions even when the "Celtic" league first came about. The Welsh used to be competitive too. Lets not forget here the Irish have been moaning for years about the unfairness of the Welsh representation, a moan that is looking increasingly justified

3) How do you know they will not? Why will the Rabonians not? Why should anyone wish to continue with a set up that is failing European rugby as a whole?
Its not generating the fan interest, the level of intense competition, the income ( yes money!) for all stakeholders, the focus as a primary goal for all teams, the excitement, the media interest, the boost to elite player quality it is intended to. It is a failing competition, the ECC even more so. The French dont even try half the time, who can blame them when they get bigger crowds for low table dead rubbers in their domestic league?
A leaner competition which pushes all its participants and is seen as the elite aspiration will have a better chance of benefiting everyone. Basing it on the landscape of 20 years ago is absurd and bound for failure. It has to adapt. It amazes me that the Irish are so dead set against this when they potentially have a lot to gain in boosting the HC.

This isnt to suggest that the Franglo proposals are the correct way to go, but negotiation from the point of view of no we arent changing anything ever because although this set up is failing us as much as you we are worried that the newspaper headlines will look bad" is as pig headed and stubborn as saying "we want a Heineken cup that consists entirely of English clubs, of wait the french have money? Ok they can come in too"


When deciding who gets to feed from a trough we need to look at who brings what to the table and why. Inviting your ugly cousin isnt going to help even if he is a nice guy. Id be quite happy to put in a few sausages if it encourages your hot sister to attend though. Get the right balance and the right teams who are capable of growth and generating interest and it could help all the Unions fill their coffers and bring more viewers and more investors in. Keep too many on welfare and the soup kitchen will run dry and the money will bugger off to the UAE.

TJ wrote:Whats hard to understand is the position of the English fans.

Answer this
1) why should the rabo teams lose 40% of their representation and the PRL none?

2) why should he Rabo teams alter their structure to their disdvantage? this structure was
created to dovetail nicely withthe HC

3) why will the PRL not enter any meaningful negotiations?

this is clearly a naked power grab by the PRL to benefit the PRL owners. the rest is a smokescreen an as we have no real details of the BT deal we do not know that it means more money - infact the best analysius I have seen of it shows the extra money is very small.

Buyt please - answer the three quyestions

Yes, it is a naked power grab to benefit the PRL owners. Don't think they've ever hidden the fact that they feel that they're at a competitive and commercial disadvantage relative to the Rabo teams and they would like to have a more consistent playing field. The commercial proposals also benefit all the other teams in absolute terms (at least, that's what we've been told), at the cost of giving up relative share.

So in answer to your questions:

1) Because 86% of the Rabo teams automatically qualify for the HEC vs 50% of the PRL. It's equally valid to ask why the Rabo should have so many more places relative to teams than the other two leagues. Can you answer me that without resorting to a) "because that's how it currently is" or b) "because it's an issue of national representation, not leagues"?

2) Any economist would tell you that they should opt to alter the structure to their disadvantage if there isn't a better available alternative. You should accept fewer teams, less power and more money if your only alternative is no teams, no power and no money because there's no tournament. You could call it the PRL and FFR refusing to play ball, but the fact is that they are unhappy with the current structure and the contract with the ERC allows them to serve notice that they want to do something different. That's within their rights. Can you answer me why the PRL and FFR should be required to stick with a tournament structure that is less than optimal for them?

3) Erm, as far as we can tell, the only meaningful attempt at negotiations has been from the PRL and FFR. They have offered an alternative structure, and they have now offered a compromise position. The ERC itself and the Rabo teams have not been reported as offering anything, other than the continuation of a status quo that is clearly unsatisfactory to their business partners. Can you tell me why they haven't publicly given any indications of negotiating?

Ok

I know we willnot agree but surely you can see why all this is unfair?

1) - yes its representation of the unions. If a redution in numbers has to be made then the pain should be shared.

2) - so its a case of might is right - do as we say or we take our ball away

3) - au contraire - the rabo teams put forward a 32 team structure that answered al the critisms of the PRL, - nothing significant has been altered by the PRL from their original position. Its for those who want to change to take the others with themand make a case for their wished for changes

TJ wrote:Ok

I know we willnot agree but surely you can see why all this is unfair?

1) - yes its representation of the unions. If a redution in numbers has to be made then the pain should be shared.

2) - so its a case of might is right - do as we say or we take our ball away

3) - au contraire - the rabo teams put forward a 32 team structure that answered al the critisms of the PRL, - nothing significant has been altered by the PRL from their original position. Its for those who want to change to take the others with themand make a case for their wished for changes

1) So the unions whose teams are 50% represented should share the pain with those whose teams are 75% and 100% represented? A fair way to do that would be to start from the same baseline - say 50% - and work from there.

2) No, it's a case of negotiating. Both sides are doing it. One side likes things the way they are, and doesn't want to change. The other side wants things to change and one of its bargaining chips is to refuse to play. It's a rational negotiating tactic - quite possibly the only credible one under the circumstances.

3) I've not seen full details of the 32-team proposal - but it's hard to see how a proposal that adds even more teams into the mix would address the concerns about too many weak teams being in the HEC.

one of its bargaining chips is to refuse to play

So you are agreeing its might over right then? Its our way or the highway?

This is why I and many of those who follow teams that would lose out are so against this. I really hope our negotiators stand up to the bullies. I would rather no HC than one where the PRL call all the shots and the weakest are left to beg for scraps.

However - it will not come to that. the PRL will have to back down or there will be a european cup without them. We have been here before.

TJ wrote:Ok

I know we willnot agree but surely you can see why all this is unfair?

1) - yes its representation of the unions. If a redution in numbers has to be made then the pain should be shared.

2) - so its a case of might is right - do as we say or we take our ball away

3) - au contraire - the rabo teams put forward a 32 team structure that answered al the critisms of the PRL, - nothing significant has been altered by the PRL from their original position. Its for those who want to change to take the others with themand make a case for their wished for changes

That's rubbish, the 32 team option is just about the polar opposite of the aims of the Franglos, with the double whammy of excluding 6 teams from European rugby entirely, 2 from each of the leagues. I bet that went down well with the Italians and may have made the Welsh and Scots a tad nervous. The triple whammy is that the initial presention of that option excluded the PRL.

The be all and end all is that the Franglos have been filtering out their dross from a purported elite competition throughout its existence, whereas the Celtalians haven't done much filtering at all, at least in recent years. Stade Francais, Wasps, Perpignan, Bath are all teams that would bring more prestige and ability to a premier european competition than Zebre or Edinburgh on this year's showings, and yet they are excluded and would continue to be on the Franglo proposed qualifications.

TJ you are hopeless. You've just had two really well thought out answers to your questions and you've gone straight back to your misconceptions of 'bully boys' and 'our way or the highway', which has been your opinion all along.

Why did you bother even asking the questions if you were just going to instantly dismiss them?

Alistair - - the answers I got agreed with that assessment.

one of its bargaining chips is to refuse to play

According to the PRL all the giving has to be done by the Rabo teams, some scraps will be left for the weaker teams if they must and its take it or leave it. Thats not negotiating. thats acting as a bully

the 32 team proposal is not perfect and is not my preferred option - it does however show a willingness to look at alternative structures which a previous poster denied had happened

Why ask the questions? to try to point out the unfairness of the PRL proposals and negotiating stance and to see if there really was an explanation that stands up.

TJ wrote:Alistair - - the answers I got agreed with that assessment.

one of its bargaining chips is to refuse to play

According to the PRL all the giving has to be done by the Rabo teams, some scraps will be left for the weaker teams if they must and its take it or leave it. Thats not negotiating. thats acting as a bully

the 32 team proposal is not perfect and is not my preferred option - it does however show a willingness to look at alternative structures which a previous poster denied had happened

Why ask the questions? to try to point out the unfairness of the PRL proposals and negotiating stance and to see if there really was an explanation that stands up.

Alternatively, all the giving has been done by the Franglos over the history of ERC, and now is the time to make it fairer.

TJ
The ERC said it is our way or the highway. The French/English clubs choose the Highway forcing the ERC into talks.
If you can't see both sides after the amount of typing on the subject by now you never will.
There are non so blind as those that don't want to see

TJ wrote:Did they? or did they start the negotiations with this stance of " we want this and if we don't get it we are taking are ball away" I have seen no meaningful negotiation especially from the PRL group.

If you don't want the status quo and the only counter-offer is the status quo, then what options are open to you?

In a post above, maestegmafia is happy to regard the recent PRL proposal as a U-turn on their part but, apparently, you see no meaningful negotiation.

I see the argument for the PRL side.

The ERC have not refused to negotiate at all

However I am sure the PRL position is very unfair and bullying and its a very different thing to say - "we like what we have - why change it?" and "We are going to do this - take it or leave it" especially when all the changes wanted are so one sided.

TJ wrote:Whats hard to understand is the position of the English fans.

Answer this
1) why should the rabo teams lose 40% of their representation and the PRL none?

2) why should he Rabo teams alter their structure to their disdvantage? this structure was
created to dovetail nicely withthe HC

3) why will the PRL not enter any meaningful negotiations?

this is clearly a naked power grab by the PRL to benefit the PRL owners. the rest is a smokescreen an as we have no real details of the BT deal we do not know that it means more money - infact the best analysis I have seen of it shows the extra money is very small.

Buyt please - answer the three quyestions

TJ, we've been over this over and over again. There is no intrinsic 'right' in any of this. Whatever comes out of it will be negotiated. Either an agreement will be met or it won't.

Why should the PRO12 unions lose places and not the Aviva or T14? Because that's what some of the parties want. That it.

Why should the PRO12 alter their structure? Again, because that's what some parties want.

Why won't the PRL enter negotiations? Well that's completely made up by you so I can't answer. Perhaps the unicorns told them not to. Provide one shred of evidence that the PRL refuse to negotiate and I'll stop mocking you over it.

How are the PRL getting power out of this? And again, the only way the PRL will gain any power is because they are given it. They can't take it. What exactly is the 'best analysis'? Since it won't be based on any actual numbers (because they haven't been released) I'm guessing it's based on supposition and cowpat?

And the 'massive U-turn' is what Maesteg called it. I was just following him.

Rugby Fan wrote:

TJ wrote:Did they? or did they start the negotiations with this stance of " we want this and if we don't get it we are taking are ball away" I have seen no meaningful negotiation especially from the PRL group.

If you don't want the status quo and the only counter-offer is the status quo, then what options are open to you?

In a post above, maestegmafia is happy to regard the recent PRL proposal as a U-turn on their part but, apparently, you see no meaningful negotiation.

No I do not - I see crumbs being offered as a boon. If the PRL were prepared to lose one of their places to share the pain that that would be a meaningful compromise. No one has been able to make any coherent argument for all the reduction in teams to come from the RABO

Hammerofthunor - at least you accept its might not right that allows the PRL to make these unfair demands

How are the PRL getting power out of this?

are you really blind to this? By negotiating the sale of the rights and thus controlling the rights they seize control of the competition.

Sorry - got sucked in to debating minutiae. I merely had hoped to show why this is seen as unfair, bullying and a power grab by many supporters of the smaller nations.

I understand the PRL position perfectly - better than some of its supporters it seems. However I do not believe some of you understand the objections to the PRL plans and to the way they have gone about presenting their demands.

Enough - it willnot go anywhere

I'm confused.

Why is anyone talking about how many teams from the Rabo qualify for the HEC?

Qualifying places are allocated to the Unions.

England, France, Ireland, Wales, Scotland and Italy.

How each of those unions decide to use their allocation is entirely up to them.

The last 4 of those unions listed use the final position of their own teams in the Rabo to decide which teams to send to the HEC.

If the English and French feel that it is unfair for Italy and Scotland to have only 2 teams ever elligible and so no chance of failure to qualify then let them argue their case with the Scottish and Italian unions. Neither Ireland nor Wales have automatic qualification. It has to be earned just like those of the French and English teams.

If the French and English feel Ireland and Wales do not deserve to have 3 teams each while they have 6 each then they have to make their cases for that to those Unions.

The Rabo has no stake in this surely other than being the vehicle that 2 of the Unions use to allocate their places.

I think that is where the majority of the confusion arises. Remembering that the places are allocated to unions, not leagues!

TJ
You keep on about The English/PRL without acknowledging that the French teams are also unhappy & have given notice to leave as well.
Half the participating teams are unhappy & have chosen to give notice to not continue in the comp as they are allowed to do in the present agreement.
IIRC the reason the French/English gave notice to quit was because the ERC didn't want to enter into talks

Broadlandboy - because I think the French will be able to be negotiated with and reach a reasonable solution I don't for the PRL. Thats from the noises coming from the various camps.

Mrs P - lazy shorthand from me to avoid saying it longways

IIRC it is the French that want to reduce the Numbers to 20 with the PRL going along with them

No TJ.

I don't think it is that.

And that is why we end up in these silly arguements of,

"Why should the Rabo have 10 teams when the English and French only have 6 each?"

The Rabo have NO qualifiers for the HEC.

It's looking likely that my team Cardiff Blues could very well be involved in an end of the season dogfight with Newport Drags for the last HEC place.
However, on current and predicted form neither deserve to qualify in my opinion as they are both very rubbish.
I hope Newport Drags win the race actually as it will kick up such a massive fuss which is probably what is needed.
My point is, rather than vent anger at the English/French, the Welsh/Scottish/Italians should get their own houses in order and start challenging the Irish in the Rabo. Only the Os have really done this in the past.

MrsP- I was using it as shorthand BUt I accept your point that it is unhelpfull

MrsP, the ERC was formed by 6 equal unions. The English clubs AND the French clubs want it be a competition of the three leagues. That's what they want and is basically the fundamental issue in the negotiations. That's why the PRO12 unions are mentioned as a collective. Right or not it is a point of negotiation.

TJ, the PRL have sold their rights to BT. All the European money goes into a central pot. The rights are still controlled by the RFU. They say whether the deal is valid or not. If the deal is agreed then the power will once again return to the RFU once the deal ends. How are the PRL gaining 'power'?

I understand full well why some of the supporters of the small unions see this as unfair, bullying, etc, etc. It's because they've had a fantastic deal over the last 15 years and don't want the gravy train to end. So much so that the smaller unions refused to enter negotiations and forced the English and French to give notice to get them to negotiate. Who's bullying who? You seem to think the English and French should be forced to play by the other unions rules and any attempt to negotiate is bullying.

Perhaps we should save these articles are just post links next time and this is same old Poopie over and over. Nothing new has happened. Negotiations are still going on (even if you think they aren't).

The real threat to the HEC is a 12 team European Super league.

It's really not beyond the top club owners to pick up/answer the phone and create and sell this brand. They would have tv money and bigger gates. The Unions would have their top players concentrated in fewer clubs playing at a higher standard, so why should they oppose it?

Can't happen? Well talks already have, so if the teams with the power aren't happy with the new revised HEC they might just set up the most lucrative competition of them all among themselves and leave everyone else to their own devices.

The Great Aukster wrote:The real threat to the HEC is a 12 team European Super league.

.

It could happen - and no doubt there would be 6 english teams prepared to have a breakaway - would they get the French and Irish? they would have to cut all ties with the unions to do so.

On numbers - if you accept that a reduction to 20 is a good idea then
5 English
5 French - qualification on league position
8 Irish / Scottish / Italian / Welsh. one from each union the other 4 decided on rabo position
Amlin and HC winners

This answers the major criticisms of all

England and France could get up to 7 teams. Everyone gives up something, everyone remains represented and good teams are rewarded / less room for duffers.

The RFU don't want to ring fence the top level of the English game so it won't happen. Regardless of what the top English clubs want.