As the news of Worcester’s management broke on Monday night, the best and brightest of French rugby gathered in Paris for a glamorous red carpet awards show.
They’ve booked the iconic Olympia Theater, which has hosted the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, and cameras are rolling to broadcast the show on TV.
After the party, they moved to a converted bank with celebrity chefs, caviar stations and champagne bars.
Top 14 Prive recently received a major investment from English billionaire Ian Osborne
No expense was spared. The image of the locked six-way doors was stark in contrast.
“French rugby is in a very healthy state,” Prive English chairman Simon Gilham said. The Letchworth Garden City man recently secured a major investment from English billionaire Ian Osborne as The Channel Rugby Club continues to outpace their rivals.
“Ian Osborne’s thinking was that he wanted to invest in French rugby, not English rugby, because he felt it was a much healthier place,” Gilham said.
He is currently investing heavily in France. He started showing interest in July 2021 and it took us a year to close the deal. He looked at French rugby and said, “Wow, that’s really solid. He went to St. Paul’s and the London School of Economics, so he could easily have gone to an English club.
England’s Zach Mercer was named player of the season at the awards ceremony, with the French club’s owners sharing their thoughts. 30 clubs are united under the National Rugby League banner. They are divided into Top 14 and Prodi2 competitions, with promotion and relegation in between, and Premiership rugby is a closed shop of 12 clubs.
While Premiership club Worcester went into administration, French rugby was booming.
“The 30 clubs work as a unit,” Gilham said. “Sometimes the decision is difficult and time-consuming, but you have 30 people voting. This is one of the main reasons why French club rugby is successful. We like to sit around the table and chat and talk. It hurts sometimes, but it’s good. We all respect each other.
“The ups and downs are very healthy. Coming from someone in Priv, voting for Christmas is like a turkey because we’re candidates for eviction every year. Bayona are now promoted and have won Bordeaux and Racing this season. Sounds brilliant, isn’t it? If there was a security fence, they wouldn’t have put it up, and they would have had no incentive to build their stadium.
‘Why won’t the Premiership allow the Ealing Trailfinders? It seems to me that the second division in England is a semi-professional league.
“England shouldn’t have 10 clubs, 20 clubs in two leagues. If you don’t renew something, it becomes obsolete and starts to shrink. This is what it looks like now.
France’s television deal with Canal Plus, worth around £100million a year, is shared between 30 clubs and encourages growth. First and Second Division matches are shown live, while ticketing at the stadiums is excellent. La Rochelle sold out their 70th consecutive game at home in the Top14 last night, a record dating back to January 2016.
But while English rugby has been plagued by asset disposals and unpaid bonuses, Gillham believes the levels of financial oversight in France are key to its success.
“The most important thing, and the least glamorous thing, is financial discipline,” he said. “It’s amazing to compare it to what I’ve read about England. All the clubs here have strict financial controls and we have full transparency with the gendarmes; the league censorship police.
“If you don’t have your budget, you can’t start the season. Getting stuck can’t pretend you have money you don’t have. If they say contract in a month, they are waiting for proof.
“It is not enough for one team to lose. It was a failure of the league as a whole. We all hate this process, just like you hate getting a speeding ticket, but we all know it’s necessary. We have to run like crazy in May and June to get all our contracts, sponsors and tickets or they won’t issue player licenses in July. If you say, “Hello, we’re signing Beauton Barrett next week,” they’ll ask you to prove you have the financial means.
“Any new investor has to prove to the auditors that he has the funds. In some cases, they ask for a bank guarantee, so the money has to be blocked. When Mohed Altrad or Jacky Lorenzetti came in, their wages suddenly went up because of all those big signings. If the income doesn’t cover the wages, this You have to put up a bank guarantee to cover the wages.In France, you can’t see a club going under in the middle of the season.
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