RFU open to rugby season moving to summer in realignment of global calendar
The Rugby Football Union is open to the concept of rugby becoming a summer sport as part of global calendar negotiations that could see next year’s British and Irish Lions tour of South Africa shifted from July to October.
The scheduling of the 2023 World Cup in France is also among a number of radical options being considered by a World Rugby working group which has been tasked to align the northern and southern hemisphere seasons.
Telegraph Sport revealed last month that the Six Nations was considering a move from its traditional window of February and March to allow it to take place at the same time as the southern hemisphere’s Rugby Championship as part of a realignment that would see the summer tour window moved from July to October.
That would free up around 30 weekends for club rugby to be played in two blocks from January through to August, transforming the professional game into a largely summer sport, potentially leading to a split in the calendar from the community game.
“From an RFU position I think summer rugby can work,” said Bill Sweeney, RFU chief executive who sits on the six-man World Rugby working group representing both hemispheres.
“One of those options is a greater playing of summer rugby, but how do you define summer rugby? Is it playing through July and August, or is it stopping at the end of July? So there are two variants of that which are possible.
“There are a lot of people who feel strongly that it’s a good idea and a lot of people who say, ‘Well if we are going to do that, here are the potential short-falls and the problems we’d have to overcome’.
“So we have to look at the pros and cons then work out, on balance, which is the best solution.
“But we are also mindful of the challenges it can throw up. You have to get into the conversation there about how the professional game relates to the community game.
“For the community game summer rugby may not work because a lot of pitches and clubhouses are shared across different sports and there is a challenge in that.”
It is understood that proposals will be discussed in further detail at a key forum of representatives from both hemispheres on Jun 15.
The Lions tour is currently scheduled to take place in July and August next year but Sweeney confirmed that the timing of the tour is also part of the discussions.
“In terms of the global calendar, you can’t approach this topic unless you include every single component in there, so the conversations around the global calendar have included the Lions,” Sweeney added.
“They’ve also included the 2023 World Cup and that’s one of the unique challenges of this sport, when you look at the calendar there’s so many different moving parts in there and the Lions are exactly the same.
“We’ve had good conversations with the Lions, clearly the tour is scheduled for July/August and if it was to move it would move into that autumn window and again, there are pros and cons towards both ways of doing it.
“Everything is interlinked. I think what you’ll find is a whole series of conversations will take place and if they’re making progress it’ll all come together very quickly, or it won’t come together at all. But the Lions are part of that conversation.
“With regard to the Six Nations, we said from day one that if it works for the best interests of the game, we would be prepared to move it, by a month or a couple of months or whatever. One of the options on the table has the Six Nations moving by a month.”
As for the completion of this year’s fixtures, Sweeney said it remained the preference of both north and south that the autumn fixtures will go ahead as planned, while the intention remains to complete this season’s outstanding Six Nations matches.
If international travel restrictions prevent the southern hemisphere sides travelling to Europe, then one option is to play a home and away Six Nations Championship for the first time, starting in November.
“There’s something quite attractive about, as a one-off, once-only because of this situation, having a home and away Six Nations. Nobody would be able to say there was a home-field advantage, it would be a level playing field,” Sweeney added.
The RFU are not yet resigned to the autumn matches having to be played behind closed doors despite current Covid-19 social distancing measures but Sweeney said the financial impact of the lockdown was likely to have an impact in the negotiations with England players over a new pay deal.
“We’re all facing a really challenging situation – we all know that,” Sweeney added. “Clearly we need to cut costs but we’re also looking at ways where we can share risk in that so when things bounce back, how does that work and so on. We’re in the middle of that conversation and that’s an ongoing process.”
