Cape Town - Stuart Barnes’ concerns over the European Champions Cup becoming a “geographically sprawling switchoff” due to the involvement of South African teams are nothing more than fear of competition, not only in the Champions Cup but the Six Nations too.
In a column for the Sunday Times, Barnes criticised SA featuring in next season’s Heineken Cup, warning that it’s only a matter of time before the Six Nations becomes the ‘Seven Nations’.
The Stormers, the Sharks and the Bulls should enter the tournament next season after finishing in the top eight of the United Rugby Championship.
South Africa’s entry into the Champions Cup should only strengthen their chances of getting into the Six Nations as well. Barnes, however, made it clear that he’s not a fan of the concept.
“From its earliest origins, when Toulouse beat Cardiff in 1996, it has been a tournament that recognises the victors as champions of Europe. Not any longer,” he wrote.
“While the other nations were scrapping away for the URC’s eight automatic Heineken Cup qualification spots, did we expect the South African sides to twiddle their thumbs, missing out on the European action? Those games are broadcast gold dust, and they wanted a sprinkle of it.
“So into the URC they came.
And there will be three South African teams playing in a tournament to decide the best team in Europe. ‘Distorted’ is the word one former France international used to describe the arrival of a whole other continent. As if South Africa’s Kaizer Chiefs were playing in football’s Champions League.
“The European Champions Cup is history. The strength of the Heineken Cup has been the intensity of rivalry between clubs, provinces, nations.
The opportunity for supporters to follow their team to other countries. Are vast numbers going to make the trip from Limerick to Pretoria? More pertinently, should they?
“How long until the final is played in Cape Town, or Johannesburg? And what if the finalists happen to be the Lions and the Sharks? A cherished, identifiable tournament becomes a geographically sprawling switch-off. You can be certain that the financiers will be pushing for South African participation in the Six Nations.
“The South African presence in the URC was inextricably linked to its best teams becoming a global contingent in what we should stop recognising as the European Cup. International alliances — the Seven Nations — are the next stage of the plan. I’ve tremendous sympathy for a great rugby nation, but South Africa is going to stretch the idea of a European Cup beyond breaking point.”
Sure, you could perhaps argue that Barnes has a point and that the European competition should be limited to exactly that — European sides. But it would have been good had there been the same kind of vehement protesting prior to SA joining — and to the significant foreign make-up of many of these teams — as there is now from certain parties.
Is it really about protecting a brand that ‘recognises the victors as champions of Europe’, or is there more to the whining from those like Barnes?
How dare South Africa go and dominate their competitions too, right?
@WynonaLouw