Matt Williams: French Top 14 fast becoming what English Premier League is to soccer

The longest of long rugby seasons will soon finally draw to a close.

After a seemingly endless series of competitions, camps, games and travel, spare a thought for the minds and bodies of the Irish players who first assembled this season in advance of the Rugby World Cup all the way back on June 18th of last year.

As they now prepare for a two-Test series against the world champions, South Africa, starting next weekend in the thin air of Pretoria, the season will have spanned an outrageous one year, three weeks and two days in length. A season that is 13 months long is not only too long for the calendar year, but it holds zero concern for player welfare.

While Irish players’ game time is well managed, players in other countries are not so fortunate.

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The first round of this season’s French Top 14 was played on August 19th of last year. Those of us in the broken nose and cauliflower ear brigade, who suffered multiple concussions back in the day, are challenged to remember back that far.

The Bouclier de Brennus Trophy, the Holy Grail of French club rugby, is seen by many in France as the ultimate rugby achievement. Even greater than winning the World Cup’s William Webb Ellis Trophy.

And therein lies the problem.

The French players and their rugby public worship the Top 14 and simply cannot get enough of it. So the broadcasters and club presidents give the French rugby public what they want, which is more club rugby. In this relationship, the players and staff come last. The physical and mental battles, spread over 10 long months of competition, do not pass even the most modest of player welfare assessments.

The northern hemisphere’s professional club calendar is 10 weeks too long and everyone, from the boardroom of World Rugby to the cleaners of the changing rooms, knows that is a fact.

The financial and political clout that the Top 14 clubs wield dominates the politics of the French Federation and limits many of the decisions around World Rugby’s attempts to reform the global playing calendar. The process of how the 2023-24 season’s calendar was approved should alarm the representatives of the players’ associations who are charged with trying to hold to account the actions of the governing bodies to protect the players’ welfare and long-term health.

As Owen Farrell packs his bags to join Racing 92 in Paris next season, he heads an ever increasing exodus of English players crossing the channel to play in France.

The Top 14 and its now highly-funded second tier, the Pro D2, has created a 32-club structure that is becoming to rugby what the English Premier League and Championship are to soccer. A giant and powerful vacuum cleaner that sucks up talent from across the globe.

While that is great for the owners of the French clubs and the supporters, the ramifications for the long-term health of the global club game and for World Rugby’s ability to manage player welfare are serious. With the success of the South African clubs joining the competition, the URC is quickly becoming a dominant club competition that may be able to balance the excesses of the Top 14 in a global calendar.

The obvious but seemingly logistically impossible answer is to align the northern and southern calendars to have New Zealand and Australia drop Super Rugby and follow South Africa to play in an expanded version of the URC.

Super Rugby has the opposite problem to the Top 14 as it has too few games, which places great financial strain on their respective organisations. An aligned club season across the northern winter allows for a mandatory non-playing period for clubs across the northern summer between late April and mid-September. If this is integrated with a realistic set of international windows the French could be forced to follow.

If only life was that simple.

Adam Foy - the Belvo boy with a Super Rugby medal

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While the positives are many – as it would separate the southern rugby season from competing against the ravenous growth of Australian rugby league, which is devouring TV audiences and sponsor money – the vast distances, travel times and the exorbitant costs of flights between Australia and Europe currently makes this idea logistically unviable.

Last week Joe Schmidt named his first squad as Australian coach for the Test series against Wales. This group of players has been described as the weakest Wallaby squad in living memory.

If a solution is not soon found to create a global club calendar – even one as radical as the Australian and New Zealand professional teams heading north with huge assistance from the northern hemisphere unions – I fear Australian rugby may soon enter into an era of irreversible decline.

Many are suggesting a terminal decline in Oz has already started and is infecting New Zealand rugby, which is in the almost unimaginable position of recording a decline in participation numbers and bums on seats.

With player welfare issues in the north because of too much club rugby and financial issues in the south due to not enough club rugby, the need for a major reorganisation of the world’s playing calendar is reaching a crisis point.

Even a child with the most basic comprehension of mathematical division can clearly understand that it is impossible to have annual rugby seasons of 13 months in a calendar year that contains only 12. Yet, somehow, rugby’s administrators have managed to achieve this impossible task.

If only they could bring such creativity to producing a global calendar that prioritises player welfare and recognises the possibilities of the global reach of our professional club game.