Guest Blogger: The “footballification” of rugby.

Guest blogger and Glasgow fan 'The Pen' analyzes the growing footballing tendencies on rugby today.

The “footballification” of rugby.

Comparisons have always been made about these two sports but as we enter 2017, in my opinion there is a worrying move from the rugby values we know and love towards those that would typically, and I’m not slating football here for a second, be associated with the round ball game.

Now I was, and to an extent, still am a bit of a football fan. I love to watch a good game between two teams, say Barcelona and Real Madrid. But what I hate to watch is the diving, play acting and trying to get each other yellow carded or sent off. Add in the constant talking back to the referee and it can easily ruin what has the potential to be a classic.

For many a year, rugby has always avoided these issues but over the course of the few seasons it has slowly crept into the game more and more and it does threaten to ruin games.

Take the incident in the Edinburgh v Stade Francais game. Phil Burleigh slapped, and was rightly sent-off I should add, Pascal Pape in the face. The complete over-reaction by the man capped 65 times by France was pure theatre. Holding his face and going down like he’d just been taken out by a CIA sniper was at best laughable and at worst, an absolute embarrassment. European Rugby issued Pape with a warning after he acted “contrary to good sportsmanship”.

We’ve seen other incidents as well of players making the most of a tackle. Take the 6 Nations last year. Alex Dunbar flipped Jonny Sexton in what was a dangerous tackle and again I have no issue with the card issued to the Scotsman, but Sexton landed, turned to the referee, threw his hands in the air before grabbing his head and writhing on the ground, a move that was given widespread condemnation by many ex-professionals.

World Rugby must do something about this and now. They may, however have contributed unwittingly to even more carnage by introducing new laws regarding contact with the head. Accidental contact above the shoulders now has the potential to see a yellow card issued. There is scope for players to duck into tackles and make the most of any contact they get. We could easily see numerous cards per game.

Another thing I hate to see is the crowding of referees to take action against a tackler and the constant nipping in the ear by players. There was a time only the captain was allowed to address the referee and that must return.

A lot of this can be stamped out but I think there is a far more serious problem that could threaten to send rugby down the football road and that is money.

Glasgow lost Leone Nakarawa, a player under contract to the club, to Racing 92 in the summer when the French team bought out his contract and paid for his services. The season before that, Toulon made an offer to Glasgow for Niko Matawalu and just this week, there has been rumours that Finn Russell could head to England or France as teams are desperate to have him on board.

Remember hearing of the Galaticos of Real Madrid? Every season the club went out and bought the biggest name in world football at that time. Zidane, Ronaldo, Beckham, Figo… Well rugby has already had its first incarnation of this with the Toulon side who swept all before it taking 3 Champions Cups in a row. Wilkinson, Nonu, Habana etc were all signed due to the massive budget that Toulon had and now they too have been overtaken by the likes of Racing 92, who can afford to pay Dan Carter roughly a fifth of the SRU’s annual budget every season a year or Saracens who can attract Schalk Burger or Will Skelton and reportedly Liam Williams. Only this week we’ve heard that DTH Van Der Merwe is leaving Scarlets, who claim to have made him a substantial offer, because they were outbid by Newcastle Falcons for his services.

The top sides in the Aviva Premiership and Top 14 have financial powers well beyond the wildest dreams of many and that creates problems. If this new trend of buying players out of their contracts continues, how long before we start to see transfer fees on top of that? What happens when owners spend beyond their means in pursuit of the top table (See London Welsh and their £1.7 million playing budget)? What about when an owner loses interest in a side and isn’t prepared to fund anymore of these marquee signings? Are we going to see more and more clubs facing oblivion? Will the European Cup really hold the same prestige when it’s the same old clubs winning year in year out because they spent the most money? Look the Champions League in football. It’s the same sides who compete for the trophy and there is a real risk that rugby could go down the same path.

And what about us as fans? Will we be able to afford tickets or will we be priced out of these by clubs who have forgotten their roots and chase money only? Shirts are changed every season now, more money for the hard-pressed fans, season ticket prices rise steeper and steeper to keep the top stars at the club and the ordinary punter begins to be priced out of the market. I have a mate who has a season ticket at Glasgow and buys one for his daughter, who was 10 at the time when the Warriors won the Pro12. Her season ticket doubled without much in the way of advance warning and the cost of my own seat rose by £120. I do take the point that prices hadn’t risen for 3 years previously but at a time of economic instability, is it fair to expect loyal fans to stump up so much in the one go? Clubs feed on the loyalty of their supporters but there will come a time when they go to that well once more and find that it has run dry.

Rugby needs to make sure that the “ footballification” is kept to a minimum…

Follow The Pen on twitter here and for more blog posts you can catch him here.