A lucrative breakaway league, which is expected to feature many of the world’s best players, could reportedly stage its inaugural competition within the next two years.
The ambitious proposal is being supported by a number of wealthy investors from England and the USA. It has drawn comparisons with LIV Golf, the controversial series backed by Saudi Arabia which has attracted many top players.
It has been claimed that around 200 players have been targeted, with a number of high-profile names thought to have already been offered expensive salaries.
The first competition could be held in the summer of 2026 if everything goes to plan over the coming months, according to the Daily Mail.
The report states that several top players have been offered pre-contract deals, which will involve complicated buyouts from their existing clubs. However, some important conditions must be met by next September in order for the pre-contracts to kick in.
Eight franchises will reportedly need to be sold in the fundraising process, while an international TV deal will need to be arranged and 200 players signed up. If these conditions are met, it will pave the way for the first event to be staged in 2026.
It is said that former England centre Mike Tindall has been consulted in the planning process, having previously been critical of rugby’s current structures.
He recently highlighted the value of franchise systems on his The Good, The Bad and The Rugby podcast, saying: “The problem is that no one went to the NFL in 1995 and said: ‘We’re thinking of doing this, how would you do it?’.
“They’d have probably said your main body has to run everything, selling all its franchising and all its sponsorship under one thing and it distributes evenly throughout the clubs. Now we’re just trying to patch up.
“We’ve been here [since rugby went professional] because it was never set up properly in the first place. It was a lot of shuffling of decks and people going: ‘Oh my god, I can make money off this’.
“If you look back now, the only way it would have really worked is having that central league type of thing, where you sell the rights to the whole league.”
The breakaway competition is set to be held in various locations across the world, with its backers hoping to transform club rugby in a similar way to the IPL in cricket.
If the league goes ahead, it would change the face of the sport as we know it and risk a huge rift with World Rugby and national unions.
Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source link
