This is a deal purely about financial gain anything else is a smokescreen. The events of the past two days have shown the motive between McCaffertys recent up-scaling of the attack on the ERC. This tv deal didn’t just happen overnight and he was clearly paving the way for what he knew was coming.
Selling the rights to the English teams games in European competition after 2014 was not only an act of brazen arrogance and deliberately confrontational but it clearly shows that he had no intentions of working with the ERC to iron out the issues he feels there are with the tournament.
Do the Celtic nations really have an unfair advantage? Ok, so the Irish internationals are well protected but the stalwarts of Ulster, Munster and Leinster for the last few seasons, the Doug Howletts, the Ruan Pienaars and Isa Nacewas have played week in week out in the Rabo.
Leinster have finished in the top 6 of the Rabo both times they have won the HC, so where does that fit in with the argument? Likewise Munster? Ulster would have qualified too before reaching the final last year?
Granted Edinburgh could be seen as the case in point but they were an exception rather than the rule.
Lets also not forget that some of the best talent in the Irish set up has come through from been blooded in the Rabo when the so called bigger stars have been away, the like of Sexton, Healy, Murray and more recently Fitzpatrick, Zebo, Jackson and Gilroy.
The Celtic Nations are competing against the massive budgets of the English and French teams not to mention vastly more populated playing pools.
McCafferty and BT’s Watson have all but finished off the Heineken cup today.
I hope they enjoy their bland, soul-less Anglo-French cup of the future and all the riches it brings them, I for one won’t be watching.
RIP European Rugby.

They’ll destroy the European game, in the name of profit.

Leinster would have qualified anyway in any of the recent seasons as would Munster so this thing about an unfair advantage for Celtic teams is sort of irrelevant, no? If they insist on less teams from PRO 12 then it could have a terrible impact on the Italian and Scottish teams. The current set-up at least gives those countries a chance of maintaining a professional set-up and being competitive in the professional game. A narrowing of the game will reduce it’s relevance and perhaps diminish its long-term future.

Time for the Pro12 unions (Ireland/Italy/Scotland/Wales) to stand firmly together. Premiership Rugby are like the playground bully who tries to destroy everything he doesn’t control. Well bullies only get defeated when people stand up to them.

Am I right in saying that they claim to have exclusive rights to a game where a Premiership team would be playing an Irish team in Ireland? Who do they think they are? Perhaps time for the Irish Government to step and list provincial rugby games. That would put a quick stop to their gallop.

The Pro12 unions are in a strong position if they hold firm. The fact is that the English and French desperately need the Pro12 teams if they are to have any sort of meaningful cross-border competition. And that’s what BT desperately needs as well. Does anybody think some new Anglo-French only tournament will bring the crowds in or television audiences? Of course it won’t. For many French teams the current HC is secondary to the Top 14 so can you imagine the contempt they would have for a lesser competitions. It would be a complete farce. After a few seasons of English only finals I think the viewing public would get very bored indeed.

The Pro12 should now be making plans for a post HC world when the Pro12 is the main competition for the four unions. Perhaps a bit of tweaking in the format could be considered. Maybe two divisions with semi-finals and finals at the end of the season. And without the HC then the international stars can be made available for more Pro12 games which will increase the quality of the games.

Let the English and the French choke on their own arrogance. In the end if the Pro12 unions hold firm they’ll come crawling back. Remember the English tried this before and failed. Let them fail again!

I always found it strange alright that with all the success Irish teams have had in the Heineken Cup that the media and supporters here seem to ignore the fact that English and French clubs view it as a secondary competition and they take their own domestic leagues far more seriously.

There is a certain degree of sense in the argument that the Pro-12 gives us an advantage in European competition. It’s not so much about qualification to the HC, rather it’s the fact that we can rest our players more and they are then fresher than their English and French counterparts when it comes to Europe, significantly towards the latter stages of the Cup when a long season takes its toll on Premiership and Top 14 players.
HOWEVER, realising this fact in no way means that I support their stance, I can simply see some truth in it. What I can also see is the huge advantages enjoyed by English and French clubs over their Pro 12 counterparts. Namely, their vastly superior funding, resources and player pools. Not to mention the fact that Irish clubs now have to limit foreign players. These advantages combine to put the French and English teams at a much greater advantage, but we don’t complain, we do our talking on the pitch. I’d like to see the French clubs with a limit on foreign players, it’s a league of mercenaries!

Is it not because of all Irish players being centrally contracted to the IRFU that they miss more Pro 12 games? Could be wrong, but it seems to me like international players miss out most of the games they do because of the national team rather than being rested for HC. So it’s not a Pro 12 issues as much as an IRFU one. Again, could be wrong, but that would mean that no matter how we change the Pro 12 format, nothing will change in terms of players missing,

Whereas I agree the primary motivation is to make more money (hardly could be called greed – most English clubs are highly loss making), the point that it’s unfair the advantage that the Celtic clubs have, is a very very valid one.

Take Leinster for example, Johnny Sexton only played SIXTEEN games last season – in ALL club competitions !!!!

That’s roughly speaking a game every 3 weeks, and when you add to that the fact that out of them sixteen games 9 were in the H-Cup, it means that in the league Sexton played only SEVEN times.

Compare that to an English equivalent who plays approx 22 league games

The advantage is huge, I’m a diehard Leinster fan, but facts are facts

They’re going to make shit of it lads

As a neutral watching english and French league games is not great watching. Hope they don’t wreck the hc and serve up the same In a new tournament!

I think they have a fair point. The pro12 gives the teams a great advantage as most of the them will get into the Heinken Cup. While English and French clubs have to actually earn the right to be in it. Munster or Leinster never really have to try to win the pro12. So I think it is something that should be addressed .

It simple as this English clubs and French clubs can not win the H cup so they want to change it UP MUNSTER