3 years has nothing on 5 years

First topic message reminder :

With all the hoo ha in football about 5 year qualification rules and how it is ruining the national game, does this throw some un-wanted light on the Rugby and its pitifully short 3 years.

In all honesty in all the radio debates, I am surprised no-one has mentioned rugby as an alternative example, but if it turns our that football finds that 5 years is too short a time for qualification for a national team, do you think the Rugby world will take notice and look at its 3 years?

My personal opinion is 3 years is a joke and it should be 5 years (at least), so maybe football have it right already

and also i'm not sure where this nationality as condition of employment red herring came from. the whole basis of player quotas is precisely that. have to admit i'm confused. this particular canard feels like something that was said somewhere, nobody remembers where, and gets referred to forever after as "the truth".

if its to do with incentive payments, lets say for a project player being groomed for national team 1. there is nothing wrong with the contract stipulating that if he chooses not to play for national team 1 when called up, and instead goes to play for national team 2, that he shall repay "x" amount of money which had been "invested" in his development. effectively means nation team 2 would need to "buy" him out of his contract. nothing illegal there.

The Great Aukster wrote:Except you can't have nationality as a condition of employment - it's against the law as discussed above.

I don't think it is correct to see that as a condition of employment, but rather making the carrot big enough not to be ignored.

quinsforever wrote:and also i'm not sure where this nationality as condition of employment red herring came from. the whole basis of player quotas is precisely that. have to admit i'm confused. this particular canard feels like something that was said somewhere, nobody remembers where, and gets referred to forever after as "the truth".

if its to do with incentive payments, lets say for a project player being groomed for national team 1. there is nothing wrong with the contract stipulating that if he chooses not to play for national team 1 when called up, and instead goes to play for national team 2, that he shall repay "x" amount of money which had been "invested" in his development. effectively means nation team 2 would need to "buy" him out of his contract. nothing illegal there.

be carefull know quinns- player quotas include the european payers as well!!

which is technically a very grey area in sport But i will admit yes you are right residency(over nationality!!) could technically be a condition of employment in your case..

i posted a couple of days ago that it wouldnt surprise me to see an enterprising club get stuck into PI rugby in a meaningful way via sponsoring kids/academies etc. Big piece in The Times today about Saracens doing precisely that...pasting most relevant bits here.

i think this residency, development, domestic quota, elegibility issue is a much bigger can of worms that the Heineken Cup, which is really just about money in the club game.

"That ambition is not purely in a ­rugby sense. They want to stamp their footprint across the world with a series of affiliations with eight clubs in five continents, creating a family of ­Saracens in Russia, China, America, Brazil, Tonga, Kenya, Abu Dhabi and Malaysia. They have seen an opportunity to “surf the wave” afforded by ­rugby’s inclusion in the 2016 Olympics in Rio and with it the flood of money and investment that inevitably will ­follow, as well as the next two World Cups in England in 2015 and Japan in 2019. They are approaching it with a missionary zeal, spreading the Saracens gospel and exporting its values to markets that provide economic, commercial and player-talent opportunities on a scale previously unimagined.
The concept of the “Global Network” belongs to Griffiths, who has run the club since 2008. It was approved by the Saracens board in May and since then he and Alex Bate, the project manager, have scoured the world. It has been a process of identifying geographical ­locations pinpointing potential ­candidates, then forming affiliations with existing clubs and supplying the Saracens brand, name, coaching, intellectual property and kit. In establishing these strategic alliances they want to position themselves ahead of rugby’s version of the Big Bang. The initial “marriage”will be for three years, but the intention is to make it last a lifetime.
Five clubs, VVA Podmoskovjie in Moscow, Abu Dhabi, Kuala Lumpar, The Impalas in Nairobi and Toa in Tonga already sport the Saracen ­moniker. Three more ventures, in America, São Paolo in Brazil and Shanghai, China, should be tied up by the year’s end.
“Over the next few years rugby, probably despite itself, is going to grow dramatically,” Griffiths said. “Rugby gets millions of funding in countries like Russia and China, and for a rugby brand it presents a huge opportunity for you to get on the back of that wave that is coming through the game.
“The network is about getting our ­little surfboard out in the deep blue sea and when this big wave comes, it is making damn sure we are on the crest of that wave so the brand grows to represent something worthwhile with our strong core values in a game which is underpinned by its values.
“It already far outperforms football in terms of discipline, respect, values and we are streets ahead of football to a point where football will never catch up. As a brand, that is where we can be fantastically successful. Companies want to be associated with these values. Do fathers want their ten-year-old boy to grow up like a footballer or a rugby player. This massive wave is coming. Whether the administration of rugby worldwide is innovative enough, creative enough or dynamic enough to take advantage I don’t know.
“As a club we have to make sure we are not going to miss that wave. We have put the network together, eight fairly large kites which are waiting for the wind to blow, and when it does, it will take us as a club to a different level.”
Longa Longa, the village in Tonga from where the Vunipolas — brothers Mako and Billy, the Saracens and England players — come particularly excites him. “Next to the (rugby) field is the house where Jonah Lomu stayed for the first seven years of his life, Soane Tonga’uiha comes from down the road. In a population of just 104,000 there are 160 Tongans playing some form of ­professional sport, be it union, league or Aussie rules. They are passionate about rugby and not much else.”
The club will provide bursaries for talented players with the prize of perhaps joining the Saracens academy. There will be proper coaching from the age of 13. Saracens’ coaches will visit each location twice a year. “That means if they come into a professional ­environment they can adapt more readily,” Bate said.

“It already far outperforms football in terms of discipline, respect, values and we are streets ahead of football to a point where football will never catch up".

Interesting that statement... sure footballers tend to come from poorer backgrounds, have less education levels etc but they could sure teach rugby players something about ethics.

In football, players do not get paid for playing for their country, the FA pays players for attendance but none of it goes to players, all of it is donated to charity.

The home nations have never chosen a player of residential grounds and have made an agreement to not do so.

fa0019 wrote:“It already far outperforms football in terms of discipline, respect, values and we are streets ahead of football to a point where football will never catch up".

Interesting that statement... sure footballers tend to come from poorer backgrounds, have less education levels etc but they could sure teach rugby players something about ethics.

In football, players do not get paid for playing for their country, the FA pays players for attendance but none of it goes to players, all of it is donated to charity.

The home nations have never chosen a player of residential grounds and have made an agreement to not do so.

If they are playing at a high enough level to get picked for England any money they might earn for appearing in the international team would likely be chicken feed compared to their club salary and endorsements linked to their profile as internationals. In other words they can afford to be charitable.

Things may change but at the moment its completely different for Rugby players

they've always been that way though... when salaries were good but not astronomic.

Kind of true. Obviously players are paid far more handsomely than their rugby counterparts which means the relatively small amount of payment for international duty is an easy way to garner good will. The women who represent England do keep their international wage as they earn no where near the same amount.

The home nations have also chosen players who qualified on residency in the past, a new rule wanting some sort of schooling has been brought in tho. Tony Dorigo represented England under Taylor.