Sport business
Rugby with XIII in search of notoriety
Under the impulse of a new federal team, this almost forgotten sport of the sponsors and television try professionnaliser.
No sponsor, no right TV. Such is today the situation of the French Federation of Rugby with XIII (a budget of 2,5 million euros) which has just elected a new president, Nicolas Larrat. With load for him to give to flood a professional sporting discipline which knew its hours of glory in years 1950 and 1960. "at that time, Rugby with XIII was financed by industrial rich person, tells it. We were too trustful and the Federation as the clubs did not know to anticipate the impact of television in the sport. The turn of the communication was not taken. A problem of leaders and the absence of true federal project failed cost very expensive our sport which almost disappeared in France, whereas it goes very well to England or Australia where it is a frightening competitor with Rugby with XV. "
An enormous delay
It is a cruel destiny for a sport, with strong accent of soil occitan, which undergoes the anathema under Vichy, when the Pétain marshal prohibits the professionalism and thus the practice of this play, obliging its members to join the clubs quinzists. The schism with the XV goes up at the years 1880-1890, when Rugby and football are confronted in England with professionalism. If the second admits without difficulty the problems of the remuneration of his practise, it will not be the same for the first what will cause the scission into 1895. "While developing towards the north of England, very industrial area, the proportion of practise resulting from the working layers increased, explains president Larrat. Rugby is not reserved any more for an aristocratic or middle-class elite, it evolves little by little to a working Rugby confronted with the crucial problem for him of the loss of earnings "It will be necessary to wait until 1906, with the removal of the stations of 3 E line wing in the play, which" harmed the extent of the movement "and" the more spectacular development of the play to broad "to see being born this new Rugby which will be established in France in 1934.
During one century, the good players of Rugby were to emigrate in the north of England, and the south of France (Carcassonne, Carpentras, Lézignan, Marseilles, Toulouse, Villeneuve-on-Batch) to earn their living... with XIII. The XV are from now on professional, and flow was reversed. Irony of the play: the team of England of Rugby to XV decided to involve itself this month with the club of Leeds, champion of England of Rugby to XIII "to improve" and "to better prepare" the Tournament of the Six-Nations. French side, product XIII exists "There should be sold", clamp the new president, while admitting having "an enormous delay to catch up with". The Federation made call at a Toulouse agency, Anouk Déqué Communication, "to canvass sponsors". The cost of the ticket of entry is 50 to 60.000 euros for a major partner. For the TV, any remainder to make "the chains made choices, in particular that of Rugby with XV, the other sports do not have right to the word, but one does not despair", known as Nicolas Larrat.
Possible renewed interest
Side clubs, the Federation created in its centre commission LER XIII in responsibility of structure and to develop professionalism "we should define the statute of the clubs and y to see clearly on the level of the contracts of the players", indicates the leader. The clubs are today 10 to dispute the Championship of France, with budgets from 600.000 to 1,5 million euros, without rights TV, living local partnerships and subsidies of the local communities. The matches attract on average 2.500 spectators. The players - a hundred - are for the majority pluriactifs with wages which are in a fork from 600 to 2.500 euros. The 60 foreign players who are professional to 100 % gain a little more.
This sport could know a renewed interest in France thanks to the neighbors of on the other side of the channel. Super League English joins together twelve clubs of the north of England, which live thanks to the basket of the press baron Rupert Murdoch which signed in 2004 a new agreement with federation (RFL) for the diffusion of the matches on BSkyB and an amount of almost 80 million euros to be poured in five years. The RFL, worried by the situation of the XIII in the Hexagon, decided to help with the "structuring" of a French club, via the federation: the Union Catalan treizist (UTC) born from the fusion of Saint-Estève and the XIII Catalan, will evolve/move thus the next year and for three seasons in Super League, with the help of a financial assistance from approximately 1,5 million euros, taken on the rights English TV. A second French club could join this elite from here one to two years (Marseilles), the objective in the long term of the English leaders being the creation of Super League European coming to compete with Heineken Cup of Rugby with XV.
ALAIN ECHEGUT
