Rugby chaos as BT plans a rival to Heineken Cup

 
p72 LONDON, ENGLAND - MAY 19: Dave and Rob Kearney
Marco Giacomelli13 September 2012

The row between Europe’s top rugby clubs and chiefs deepened today after BT announced plans to launch a rival to the Heineken Cup.

BT pulled off a coup yesterday by signing a four-year £152million deal for exclusive coverage of the Aviva ­Premiership, starting next season.

Controversially, the contract also includes the rights for all European games played by England’s top-flight clubs for three years from 2014.

Following the announcement, however, European Rugby Cup, the governing body of the Heineken Cup, sold its TV rights to Sky for another four years from the start of the 2014-15 season and insisted it covered all games in the competition featuring Premiership clubs.

English and French clubs are in dispute with ERC over the tournament’s structure, especially its qualification format, and are threatening to set up an alternative when the current agreement ends in 2014.

Now BT hopes to capitalise on this turmoil with a breakaway competition featuring Europe’s elite clubs.

BT Vision chief executive Marc Watson told sportspromedia.com: “We are looking to set up, or at least help set up, a dazzling new European tournament with a fantastic new format, with, we hope, all the best clubs.

“And we’ve secured, from the English Premiership, the rights to that for the UK. That tournament will be the successor to the Heineken Cup, which is a very successful tournament.

“The Heineken Cup, under its current contract, has another season to run, and that will be the end of it, and we are looking to set up a brand new tournament from then.

“We saw in rugby an opportunity to own a sport exclusively, certainly at club level, and the rights that we’ve bought give us a chance to do that.

“We are hosting the Rugby World Cup in 2015 in the UK. It’s a great opportunity in the two years running up to that, we think, to grow the sport. It’s a sport that has got a long way to go. We were attracted by the idea of growing with it, and helping it to grow in the UK.”

Watson’s comments will do nothing to alter the sense of disarray in the European game following Premiership Rugby’s announcement.

Last night, ERC claimed the deal with BT Vision was “in breach both of IRB regulations and of a mandate from the ERC board itself”.

“European club rugby’s six participant Unions have granted the authority to sell broadcast rights to its tournaments solely to ERC,” they said in a statement.

A meeting of ERC stakeholders is due to be held in Dublin next Tuesday.

Top clubs in England and France have already announced they plan to quit the tournament in 2014. As a result, Premier Rugby insist the ERC are not allowed to sell rights for the ­tournament beyond the end of the current deal.

“ERC’s suggestion that Premiership Rugby may be in breach of IRB regulations is wrong,” said the body that represent English sides.

“Following Premiership Rugby’s agreement with the RFU, dated October 16 2007. Premiership Rugby have specific consent to control the broadcast rights of their clubs.”

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