World Club Cup launch tosses away decades of European rugby history

The Guardian

26-05-2025

Some people are never satisfied. They firmly believe that if things are constantly tweaked there is a better chance of staying relevant. In certain areas of retail they are right. Years ago, on a dusty pavement in India, I once encountered a man selling second-hand false teeth from a small wooden table. I think of him whenever people lament the size of their annual bonus or their boss's failure to appreciate them.
Sport, though, is rarely that simple. While you don't want to end up miles behind the curve, retaining an element of familiarity is crucial. Supporters love the comfort blanket of their favourite local team, the club colours their parents wore, the same time-honoured songs and competitions. It rarely pays to confuse your existing audience or, worse, to announce that things that should matter hugely are now as sexy as 30-year-old dentures.
Which is pretty much the conundrum rugby union is facing. If you had been beamed down from Mars on Saturday afternoon you would have sat in the Principality Stadium watching the Champions Cup final and assumed club rugby was in fabulous shape. A throbbing spectacle, two sets of passionate but good-humoured fans, 70,000 paying punters in the stands. There was even a spot of post‑match niggle to underline how much everyone cared.
And once it was all over the players of Bordeaux Bègles celebrated as if they had just won the World Cup itself, conga‑ing into the after-game press conference and spraying beer over their captain and coach. And why not? Never before has the biggest trophy in club rugby ended up in the hands of a team who did not even exist before 2006, when two rival city clubs merged.
If that sounds like progress, it most certainly is. Bordeaux will now hope that, like Toulouse and Leinster and Saracens before them, they can make a regular habit of it and turn their city into Europe's capital of rugby in addition to wine. If ever there was a local population well equipped to pop a celebratory cork, it is surely the Bordelais.
Except that, come 2028, beating the rest of Europe and a handful of South African provinces will no longer be deemed quite enough. The board of European Professional Club Rugby – having been embarrassingly bounced into making the announcement earlier than intended – has just confirmed that, every four years, a World Club Cup will replace the knockout stages of its flagship men's competition. The eight Champions Cup quarter-finalists will be joined by seven teams from Super Rugby Pacific and one Japanese participant.
Just stop and think about that for a moment. It's basically the equivalent of the Champions League in football being halted after the group phase and sides from South America, the US, Japan and China being parachuted in for the business end. There would be no actual Champions League winner that year because, well, that is seen as less glossy than crowning a world club champion.
And, of course, there will be more broadcasting bucks in it. Never mind that, at a stroke, you're tossing away decades of history and heritage for a game or two against the Chiefs – the Waikato-based version – or Toshiba Brave Lupus in a neutral European city where nobody even knows what a brave lupus is (if you're wondering, it's derived from the Latin word for 'wolf'). But it'll be new and shiny, so that's fine.
There is every chance of it proving an ill-judged turkey. It is not a massive leap to predict that at least four of the eight European participants will be from France's Top 14, the game's wealthiest domestic league, along with two South African sides plus Leinster. That potentially leaves one spot for the rest of Ireland, England, Scotland, Wales and Italy combined. Let alone all the other wannabe emerging nations out there.
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Yes, the final should generate more revenue but, for example, Bordeaux v Bulls in Barcelona would not float everybody's glass-bottomed boat. In that scenario, at short notice, you would struggle to attract many Bulls fans and the global festival of rugby vibe would be tough to stoke.
Even the absolute top-drawer scenario – Toulouse versus the Crusaders, say – would fall short of the tradition, passion and romance that almost every Champions Cup final delivers. And even if the primary rationale is to head off a breakaway rebel franchise circus or stave off financial oblivion closer to home, the wider cost threatens to be significant. With the existing pool stage having already been ruinously chopped and changed since the halcyon days of the old Heineken Cup, there is a risk again of the baby being thrown out with the sponsored bathwater.
You could not have wished for a better game than Northampton's semi-final victory against Leinster in Dublin. The final on Saturday, which Saints lost 28-20 after a pulsating first half, was another glorious sporting occasion generally and truly vintage one in Bordeaux.
Yet in 2028 – even the final scoreline in Cardiff reads like a subliminal plug – there is every chance of wine being turned into water for the sake of a few extra dollars. Be careful what you wish for. Opting to remove a healthy front tooth in the name of innovation is not necessarily progress.