Lions chief executive John Feehan warned that decline would have alarming consequences for the financing of the game.
Lions chief executive John Feehan warned that decline would have alarming consequences for the financing of the game.
The British and Irish Lions could become a "dead concept" if they are subjected to "insane" plans to reduce the number of games and length of future tours and fail to build in adequate preparation time, Gavin Mairs reports.
In the build-up to last night's first test between the Lions and the All Blacks, leading figures have delivered a sobering verdict on the Lions' future with warnings that the entire structure could be "killed off".
Moves to reduce future tours from 10 to eight games and six to five weeks were described as "madness" by John Spencer, a Lions board member and manager of the tour in New Zealand.
Spencer, who was assaulted by a drunk man in an Auckland restaurant this week, warned that coaches and players would turn their backs on the Lions because of the impossibility of the task they faced and the threats to welfare.
The next three-tour cycle of South Africa, Australia and New Zealand has been agreed in principle with a minimum of eight games, as part of the new global calendar from 2019 announced by World Rugby in March.
However, negotiations between stakeholders to determine the details of the Lions tours from 2021 are ongoing and there is pressure from clubs, particularly in England, to shorten the length of the tour to five weeks, a schedule that officials fear would make the concept untenable. They believe a two-week preparation time is the minimum requirement.
"If they take a couple of matches away from us, all coaches think that is madness, bordering on insanity - voluntary insanity," Spencer said. "If we are not careful with preparation, I think the Lions could be a dead concept.
"The clubs would be killing it by demanding extra things every tour - shorter tours, fewer matches, less preparation.
Meanwhile, with one fewer match before the first test, the Lions would come under incredible pressure from the host nation.
"It is easy to say 'don't play the midweek matches' but how do we prepare? Our tour has to have moral force. We need to engage with the community, be respectful and go away with a level of integrity and unless we provide meaningful opposition, you just can't do it."
There is huge frustration in the current Lions management that they were forced to play their opening game against the New Zealand Provincial Barbarians only three days after their long-haul flight from London because of the refusal of clubs to shift their domestic finals.
The controversy of the six call-ups last week is further evidence of the challenging schedule. It's understood the Lions paid Premiership clubs around £470,000 ($820,000) in 2009 to secure agreement for the date of their final to be brought forward to allow a full week of preparation before the tour of South Africa.
The request was rejected four years later by both English and Welsh clubs and not even raised ahead of this tour.
"I fully understand that the Premiership wants more time at the end of the season and do not want overlaps with internationals but one has to contrast with that the huge undertaking and status of the Lions tour," Spencer said.
Senior sources in the home unions have admitted that the decision to block a plan to reduce the Six Nations from seven to six weeks - which had originally been proposed by the clubs as part of the new global calendar - has now left the Lions extremely vulnerable in the battle to maintain the current length of tour and secure more preparation time.
Spencer argued that "it would be totally contrary to all our values and common sense to let the Lions go into decline".
"What other sport could take between 20,000 to 30,000 supporters away from home, help the economy of the host country and keep the creed and concept of the Lions going and here we are artificially trying to hit it around the head with a bat?
"We are going to put such pressure on the coaches and players at the end of a busy season and they will eventually, because it is such an impossible task, not want to go. "Coaches will say 'I am not putting my reputation at stake for that', and players will say 'we are just going to get beaten up'."
Lions chief executive John Feehan warned that decline would have alarming consequences for the financing of the game.
"If the Lions are killed over the next three tours, then Northern Hemisphere leverage is gone and a great brand of rugby is gone," Feehan said. "When I first started 16 years ago, there was a lot of questioning in the press about whether the concept should be continued or not. The 2005 tour [to New Zealand] was difficult but what it did do was make a little bit of money.
"But what some unions did not really appreciate back then was how important the tour is financially for the Sanzar [South Africa, New Zealand and Australia] unions, as the home union gets to keep the goodies. The Northern Hemisphere make more out of the autumn series than the Southern Hemisphere make out of the June series."
Steve Tew, New Zealand Rugby chief executive and one of the key negotiators in the global calendar, said they had preferred to keep the number of tour games at 10, while eight was seen as the minimum to maintain the tour's ethos and revenue generation for the host nation.
"We've had a discussion about how many games and we have agreed there must be a minimum to make it still like a tour but also considered the pressure on the players' workload from clubs' point of view," Tew said. "If we got down to five games, it would fundamentally change the way a tour is perceived by the players and fans and it would be difficult for the Lions to be brought together for the test matches with just two warm-up games.
"If it lands at eight, we can live with eight. There is no doubt though it will make it harder for the host country to determine who gets games and who doesn't."
Talks between the Lions board and their Sanzar counterparts over the details of the next three tours are expected to begin before the end of the year. There is concern that the Lions will lack a strong advocate given any agreement will require the unanimous agreement of the unions some of whom, such as the Rugby Football Union, have to consider their long-term agreement with clubs.
"The Lions have a scarcity value that no other sporting event has. The Sanzar countries are happy for it to go down to eight games because the Lions have less preparation time and the host country has more chance of winning," Spencer said. "Also financially, they are not affected because they make their money around the test matches.
"Let's ask what is right for our guys. Is this what we want? If you ask any player on this tour what they think of the concept, they will tell you it is overwhelming. It is the peak of their careers, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Every member of the squad and backroom staff feels the same.
"I dread the start of the decline for reasons that can be avoided so easily at this stage. We should sit down with the stakeholders and say 'we understand where you are coming from but why are we going to kill off the king of rugby?'
"Let's have a little bit of common sense in administration where we can protect rugby between certain dates once every four years."
All Blacks coach Steve Hansen said on Thursday that the impact of the Lions had been huge on the players who had faced them in the build-up to the first test and on the country as a whole.
"It would be a real shame if we ever lose the Lions," Hansen said.
Rich English clubs want Lions to pay for the privilege.
Those in charge of the British and Irish Lions were warned yesterday by top clubs that there was no prospect of the concept continuing in its present form.
Ahead of the Lions' first test against New Zealand last night, two of the most senior figures in the British game spoke out against rugby's biggest institution being made a special case in a new global calendar after tour chiefs branded moves to reduce the number of fixtures and length of trips as "insane" and claimed the entire structure could be "killed off".
The chairman of Premiership champions Exeter, Tony Rowe, said that if the Lions wanted to retain - or even extend - the six-week period in which they were granted access to players for this year's tour, they should pay for the privilege.
Exeter Chiefs' Chief Executive and Chairman Tony Rowe. Photo / Getty images
The chief executive of Leicester, Simon Cohen, went even further, calling for the curtailing of future trips come what may amid a battle by tour chiefs to prevent them being cut from 10 to eight games and six to five weeks.
The two club supremos broke their silence on the controversy amid ongoing negotiations between stakeholders to determine the details of the trips from 2021, following March's agreement in principle that the next three-tour cycle of South Africa, Australia and New Zealand would feature a minimum of eight games under a new global calendar that begins in 2019.
The chief executive of Leicester Tigers, Simon Cohen. Photo / Getty images
Lions chiefs are adamant that the squad require a minimum two-week preparation time for each tour but clubs were last night preparing to dig in their heels on the issue.
Rowe, whose Exeter stars Jack Nowell and Tomas Francis, are in New Zealand, said: "We're in a professional game and it's about money. No matter which way you cut it, it's about money.
"And the reality is, the amount of money we get from the Lions is farcical, if you compare that to the product or assets they are actually borrowing. It could well come down to the fact that the English clubs say, 'Well, no. Unless you're prepared to pay this amount of money, you can't have our asset'. "
Revealing he had just spent £1 million ($1,74 million) on a new Desso hybrid training pitch, Rowe said the Lions should be generating commercial revenue "commensurate with the asset" and passing on a fair proportion of that to clubs.
Describing the entire concept as "a throwback from the amateur days", he added:
"Commercially, it does nothing for our club. It does a lot for the player."
Cohen claimed no amount of hard cash would convince him to support the status quo.
"For me, it's not about the money. It's about player welfare. And, in the current set of structures, what's the longest tour that the game can accommodate? I think it's considerably shorter than we're currently playing," he said.
"It's unfair on the players to ask what we are currently asking from them. It's difficult for the clubs, who are the ones that find, develop, nurture, pay players, to expect that - whatever the money - they are to do without their players for a large part of the season. "The clubs already give the players up to England for significant parts of the season. I think that's a big ask as it currently stands."
Acknowledging that the Lions was "a fantastic concept", Cohen nevertheless warned: "The professional game is only 30 years old. Whether the Lions concept will survive 50 or 60 years into the professional game, who knows?
"The Lions would have to look at it differently and, if they're not prepared to, then of course they run the risk of a conflict and it would be difficult to know who the winners would be in that case."
Amid what appears to be a lack of unanimity about precisely what its clubs want out of the current talks, Premiership Rugby last night declined to comment on its negotiating position.
