European club rugby is on the brink of collapse. Back in June 2012, English and French clubs announced that they planned to withdraw from the Heineken Cup, the ‘Champions League of rugby’, at the end of the 2013-14 season. Apparently irresolvable differences meant that they refused to participate in future competitions of the European Rugby Cup Limited (ERC), a move that would isolate the Pro12 league of teams from Scotland, Ireland, Wales and Italy.

Money is at the centre of the debate. Whereas ERC currently distribute more than half of the Heineken Cup’s revenues to the Pro12, the English and French wanted a third each. Television rights seem to be a key motivator. In the UK, BT Sport has set out to challenge the dominance of Sky, reinvigorating the sports licensing market and raising the possibility of hugely increased deals.

In last year’s Heineken Cup final, an all-French affair between Clermont and Toulon, only 11 out of the 30 players in the starting line-ups were eligible for the French national team.

Commentators have been quick to link such statistics with the declining performance of the French national side, which finished bottom in last year’s Six Nations.
But is the purpose of clubs to act as a feeder system for the national team?
This certainly cannot be said of football. Compare the 11 Frenchmen in the Heineken Cup final to last year’s FA Cup final, where 3 of the starting 22 for Manchester City and Wigan Athletic were English.

Football is the most moneyed and internationalised sport in the world, yet international football tournaments are not undermined by players’ clubs being outside their home countries.

There is no reason why rugby could not benefit from healthier finances in the same way. Rather than having a handful of international matches to look forward to each season, club rugby has the potential to provide a full season of world class fixtures.

But for the Pro12 clubs, and the Welsh regions in particular, this goal seems very distant. No Welsh, Scottish or Italian teams have made it out of the group stage of this year’s Heineken Cup. This leaves them largely focused on the Pro12, which is an increasingly limp competition. Half way through the season, five teams are well clear in pursuit of 4 semi-final berths, while there is no threat of relegation to invigorate the bottom teams.

This pales in comparison with the French Top 14 league, which is so competitive that the team in sitting in thirteenth place has a symmetrical won eight, lost eight record. The points in England’s Aviva Premiership are less evenly distributed, but, as in the French League, there is the prospect of relegation to keep things interesting at the bottom of the table.

Not even qualification for the following year’s Heineken Cup can add much interest to the Pro12. French and English teams require a strong top half finish to qualify for the Heineken. But ten teams qualify from the Pro12, meaning that the Welsh and Irish teams need only not be the worst in their country, while the two teams from Scotland and Italy gain automatic entry.

Money and internationalisation at club level will not debase the international game. But without a competitive and financially sound domestic system, international rugby will surely be threatened with collapse.