BY JOHN DAVIDSON
SOMETIMES IT takes a big shock for people to accept reality.
A major surprise to hit them in the face and bring them down to earth.
My back page story in today’s i_paper, which you can read here, came as a shock to many. A shock at just how much the international game has fallen, at how much the RFL is struggling, at how dire things have gotten in the UK.
I’ve often been criticised as a doom or crisis merchant, but I gain no joy from revealing how poorly England’s national men’s team players are currently being paid. It’s just the sad reality of the situation.
But instead of replying with “players shouldn’t be paid for representing their country”, or “this is all the sport can afford”, which have been some of the inane responses, we should be asking questions:
Why is the pay so low?
Why was it £600 a win bonus for Great Britain in the 1980s, £4000 a win bonus in the 1990s, but a mere token amount now?
Where is the money in UK rugby league – TV revenue, ticket sales, government funding etc – actually going? What is it being spent on?
Why aren’t the RFL and RL Commercial being held accountable?
Why aren’t players and others in the sport speaking out about this?
What can be done about it?
Things, international payments included, were better in the past. And they can be better in the future. But for that to happen there needs to be change.
Change in the marketing strategy, change in the ticketing strategy, change in the way the media is engaged and change in how international rugby league is promoted.
Take this England vs France game, tacked on before a Toulouse vs Featherstone Championship game. in June It reeks of being tinpot, of being a completely unimportant event, even to rugby league fans.
It won’t have major television coverage on the BBC or Sky.
Take the stories generated following a hastily organised Zoom media call with England coach Shaun Wane yesterday, organised with five hours notice, that only had a total of six journalists attending it. Several rugby league journalists, and it’s a small group to begin with, didn’t even know the media conference was on.
The coverage of it has been minuscule at best.
Nothing in the vast majority of most of the national media, The Guardian, the BBC, Sky Sports, The Daily Mail, TalkSport, ITV etc etc.
And the RFL expect people to attend Test matches, to watch on TV or online.
It’s out of sight, out of mind.
“If you dislike change, you’re going to dislike irrelevance even more.”
That is where, sadly, international rugby league sits at the moment. Irrelevant. Unimportant. Forgotten.