The white smoke has been sighted from the ARU’s chimney to anoint the Melbourne Rebels consortium headed by Sydney business man, Harold Mitchell, as the chosen ones to lead the new Super 15 franchise in 2011.
After months of uncertainty and moments of high dudgeon between the ARU and a range of prospective suitors, today’s announcement is the first step in what will be an interesting 12 months for the Rebels as they try to build a team from the ground-up.
This fact was not lost on Mitchell who dodged the question when asked how long it would be before the appointments such as a CEO or Head Coach were announced.
“We are not too far away, of course we have been doing plenty of work, but I’m not about to announce it this morning,” said Mitchell.
Sounds a bit like “we haven’t a fucking clue and we’ll take whoever we can get”, but maybe that’s just me being a cynic?
The task of player recruitment has been made somewhat easier with the sweeteners offered by the ARU in terms of increased financial assistance and the relaxation of foreign player restrictions announced yesterday. Indeed reports had suggested that without these concessions, the whole private equity venture may have fallen over completely.
The issue of the relaxation of foreign player restrictions is an interesting one given the amount of money it would take to even tempt the most modest of talent to venture to Australia’s sporting capital. With rugby booming in the Northern Hemisphere and cashed-up privately owned clubs clambering for players, more than likely this quota will not be filled.
With the average Super 14 team costing around $10M to run, and a projected gross revenue figure (before expenses) of around $15M for the Rebels in the first year, it is hard to see where the funds will come from to attract top-line overseas talent when you consider the Rebels will also incur significant start-up costs in their first year.
Perhaps some of this cash might be found from the corporate sector with Melbourne home to some of Australia’s largest companies through third party sponsorship agreements. This could be the case, however the spectacular failures of these agreements in the recent past may also give overseas players pause for thought.
If the Rebels are not able to attract real rugby talent from overseas it will lead to another round of raping and pillaging of the other Australian Super rugby teams, similar to what happened with the start-up of the Force.
It is clear from the foreign player concessions that the ARU does not believe there is enough local talent to fill a fifth team so should this initiative fail, it will weaken Australian rugby as a whole. It is a sobering thought that the decline of Australian rugby coincided with the Force’s inaugural year.
Let’s hope the ARU make no more concessions to their new bedfellow and have learned the lessons of 2006. If not, Australian rugby could fall further behind the international competition, but more importantly, the local rival football codes also.
