Call for a ‘World Cup of Clubs’ to replace European Champions Cup

World Rugby’s vice-chairman-elect Bernard Laporte has proposed a World Cup of Clubs which would see the end of the existing European Champions Cup and Challenge Cup.

French rugby chief Bernard Laporte, right, with chairman of World Rugby Bill Beaumont. Picture: Adrian Dennis/AFP via Getty Images

A potential sticking point is the European club competitions are owned and run by European Professional Club Rugby (EPCR), constituted mainly of the three big leagues: Top 14, Premiership and Pro14 – whereas Laporte envisages the World Cup of Clubs being run by World Rugby.

Laporte, the chairman of the French Rugby Federation, and former head coach of the Toulon club and France, has an influential ally as he is running on a joint ticket with Bill Beaumont in the World Rugby elections in May – with Beaumont seeking re-election as chairman.

Laporte told Midi Olympique he and Beaumont had been working for four months on new competition structures. One of the Laporte-Beaumont ideas is a World Cup of Clubs based in its format on the Rugby World Cup. Laporte says the club competition would be played annually and while it might start smaller it would eventually involve 20 teams across a six-week period. The teams would be divided into four pools of five followed by quarter-finals, semi-finals and a final.

Laporte said: “I think it would be a mistake not to think big. You have to be ambitious. I imagine seeing qualified the semi-finalists of the [French] Top 14, those of the English championship [the Gallagher Premiership], the first six of Super Rugby, the first four of the Celtic League [Pro14], the champion of Japan and that of the United States for example.”

Laporte said the existing European club competitions make insufficient revenue, and as this proposal is for an international competition, it should be World Rugby in charge of it.

He said he had consulted Bill Sweeney, chief executive of the RFU, and chairmen of the French clubs.

“It [the European Cup] would disappear, that’s for sure, if we don’t want to overload the calendar a little more,” Laporte said. “This [existing] European competition is magnificent, with the RCT [Toulon] I was able to lift the trophy three times and I know what it can represent. But let’s be frank: it does not generate enough income. If we want to develop this Club World Cup, we have to find dates. Without the Champions Cup, nine weekends are available.”

Asked if it was a similar proposal to telling football to ditch the Champions League, Laporte said: “Even if it only takes place in Europe, the Champions League is nothing other than an unnamed Club World Cup. The best players in the world compete in it. We [rugby union] are not comparable with football. It is a universal sport whereas we are only ‘regionalists’. This is why our [France’s] best clubs must face the Celts and English but also the South Africans, Argentines, Japanese, Australians, New Zealanders. It is at this price that we will develop rugby internationally. Trust me, there will be a terrible craze.”

It is understood World Rugby is currently placing an emphasis on its plans to assist unions who are struggling financially due to the Covid-19 outbreak, including making loans set against the governing body’s cash reserves.

But there is undoubtedly a push by unions to achieve a greater harmony in the seasons across northern and southern hemispheres, and to keep the cash-strapped unions of Australia and New Zealand among others in business. The push is based on maintaining prominent slots for international rugby and a re-floating of the Nations League concept.