BY STEVE MASCORD
THE worst vantage point from which to view history is from the middle of it.
In light of the cancellation of France 2025 and its qualifiers since our last edition, how might this period be recorded in the annals of our sport? How might we look back on it in 50 years? What do these recent disasters tell us about our direction of travel?
Back in 2021, when Australia and New Zealand withdrew from the World Cup and the organisers were trying to make up their minds whether to proceed, we imagined – we thought we could actually see – a power struggle.
The NRL and its associated competitions employed the vast majority of players in the men’s World Cup but the countries, the tournament and the IRL were separate bodies with their own structures, able to leverage that playing population to their own ends.
It made sense that the NRL might want to make a stand to control more of that IP. The World Cup postponement cost the tournament – and therefore the IRL – millions of dollars.
A weaker IRL gives the NRL more power in planning the future.
But what we have seen since is dramatic change in that narrative.
With the cost of living crisis and war in Eastern Europe, there is no longer any real power struggle. The NRL is the only rugby league body in the world with serious money (even though it gave back some of its TV rights during the pandemic) and it can increasingly do as it pleases.
The Rugby Football League and Super League are relying on IMG to save them from a return to part-time-ism. The sport in England becomes more of a sideshow to the actual direction of rugby league globally with every passing month.
Even if the NRL has not set out to weaken the IRL – its delegates sit on the board, after all – it has only had to sit back and watch its properties depreciate in value. With no next World Cup locked in and no money coming from the French government, what collateral does the IRL have to borrow money and do anything?
Where we are in rugby league history is the transition point, the crossroads, where the sport’s global fortunes will be controlled from League Central.
The proposed move into NRL matches being played in Las Vegas is evidence of this. America remains the promised land; only the Australasian authorities can afford to go there in any meaningful way. If you are a country where the sport is played, but where the NRL has no plans, your prospects look increasingly bleak.
European Rugby League cancelled the Euros planned for this year by blaming the uncertainty over the 2025 World Cup. But really, it has no money. The funding for the matches would have been a crippling burden and the World Cup debacle came at a serendipitous time for them, giving them some cover.
As a source said to me this week: England think they are too good to play France, France think they are too good to play Serbia and so-on. England and France have veto rights over every decision the ERL makes; the path to commercial growth is more often than not blocked by these countries who cannot be happy with their own performances in that area.
It would not be outrageous to say there is doubt over the ERL’s entire existence going forward.
So where we are in rugby league history is the pivot point towards the NRL being as dominant a controlling force in world rugby league as MLB is in baseball, the NBA in basketball … and maybe even the NFL in American football.
The Contrarian appears in Rugby League Review every second month
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