SA rugby teams in Europe would be like ‘Chiefs in the Champions League’

After finishing inside the top eight of the United Rugby Championship, the Bulls, Sharks and Stormers are set to take part in the Champions Cup next season, while the Lions will be involved in the Challenge Cup. It’s a prospect that has always been on the cards, and the entry into Europe was always seen as the real carrot dangling at the end of the stick once South African teams moved into northern hemisphere competition.

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However, in a hard-hitting column for the Sunday Times, Stuart Barnes has criticised South Africa’s involvement in next season’s European Champions Cup.

“From its earliest origins, when Toulouse beat Cardiff in 1996, it has been a tournament that recognises the victors as champions of Europe. Not any longer,” writes Barnes.

“While the other nations were scrapping away for the URC’s eight automatic Heineken Cup qualification spots, did we expect the South African sides to twiddle their thumbs, missing out on the European action? Those games are broadcast gold dust, and they wanted a sprinkle of it.

“So into the URC they came. And there will be three South African teams playing in a tournament to decide the best team in Europe. ‘Distorted’ is the word one former France international used to describe the arrival of a whole other continent. As if South Africa’s Kaizer Chiefs were playing in football’s Champions League.

“The European Champions Cup is history. The strength of the Heineken Cup has been the intensity of rivalry between clubs, provinces, nations. The opportunity for supporters to follow their team to other countries. Are vast numbers going to make the trip from Limerick to Pretoria? More pertinently, should they?

“How long until the final is played in Cape Town, or Johannesburg? And what if the finalists happen to be the Lions and the Sharks? A cherished, identifiable tournament becomes a geographically sprawling switch-off.”

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Barnes also suggested the crossover into Europe was just the start for South Africa

“You can be certain that the financiers will be pushing for South African participation in the Six Nations.

“The South African presence in the URC was inextricably linked to its best teams becoming a global contingent in what we should stop recognising as the European Cup. International alliances — the Seven Nations — are the next stage of the plan. I’ve tremendous sympathy for a great rugby nation, but South Africa is going to stretch the idea of a European Cup beyond breaking point.”

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