Earlier today Toulon owner Mourad Boudjellal announced he wants to scrap the European Champions Cup and start a European Super League. Using this idea and the NFL as an influence here’s my idea of what a European Super League cold look like taking into account the following aims.
The stated mission of the league is to improve both club and international rugby in Europe fulfilling the following criteria:
- Have a domestic French Champion
- Have a domestic English Champion
- Have a Regions (Pro 12) Champion
- Have team promotion/relegation available for English and French sides.
- No promotion or relegation for the regional (Pro 12) teams to maintain the regions.
- Improve rugby in Georgia and Romania.
The Idea:
A league split into three conferences each split into two groups of seven.
Conference A: The English Conference
In this conference there would be the twelve current Aviva Premiership teams plus two teams currently in the English Championship, making a total of fourteen English clubs.
Conference B: The French Conference
Top 14, enough said.
Conference C: The Regions Conference
The Pro12 plus a representative team from both Georgia and Romania (like the Sunwolves and Jaguars)
Each conference would be split into two groups of seven. The bonus points system currently used in most domestic leagues would be employed:
- 4 points will be awarded for a win
- 2 points will be awarded for a draw
- 1 point will be awarded to a team that loses a match by 7 points or less
- 1 point will be awarded to a team scoring 4 tries or more in a match
Each team in a group would play the other teams in that group twice in a season. They would also play teams in the other group of the same conference once in a season. This would make up the regular season for a total of 19 weeks. This means that all the English teams will at least get 1 game against every other English team (etc..), making rivalries and local derby’s all the more special if it’s one game a year.
At the end of the season the top team in each group is crowned ‘group champion’. The top four teams of each conference (top two in each group) have knock-out play-off matches to determine the conference champion and therefore domestic level champions.
This leaves three domestic champions, a English, a French and a Regions Champion. They are put into the ‘Grand Championship’ play-offs with a ‘wild card’ team. The wild card team would be the team across all three conferences that scored the most trys. If the team with the most trys is already in the Grand Championship play-offs the spot goes to the team with the next most trys, and so on…
The four teams then have semi-final play-offs, the winners of which go into a Super-Bowl style ‘Grand Final’.
The teams that made the play-offs for each conference’s title but didn’t make the Grand Final play-offs enter into a Secondary Cup (think European Challenge Cup). The likelihood is there will be eight teams in this cup making a nice tournament format (as the team with the most trys overall is more than likely to come from the twelve teams that made it to the conference level play-offs). If somehow nine teams end up in this cup the team with the lowest points in their respective group is dropped to maintain the nice tournament format.
Speaking of dropping teams, in order to keep the English and French lower leagues happy, the bottom team in each English and French group would be relegated and teams from their respective domestic championships would be promoted.
This is how the European Rugby Calendar would look:
- 19 week regular season at the end of which a ‘group champion’ is crowned from each of the six groups.
- two week domestic play-off’s, at the end of which a English, French and Regions champion is crowned who all automatically enter into the ‘Grand Final play-offs’ along with a ‘wild card’ club that has scored the most (or next most) amount of trys that season.
- Quarter-final week of Secondary Cup. Break week for those qualified for Grand Final play-offs.
- Semi-final Week for Secondary cup and ‘Grand Final’ Semi-final play-offs
- Final Week, Secondary Cup Final and Grand Final in one big weekend.
The season would be a total of 24 weeks long. If my maths is correct, if the season started at the beginning of September the season should end (without any additional break weeks) in mid-February – if the Six Nations was pushed back a month from the beginning of February to the beginning of March it would mean the clubs and national unions would not be at each-other’s throats constantly over player’s being released because there would be no overlap. But, for the sake of argument, let’s add in break-weeks into the tournament. One at Week 6, one after Week 13, one after Week 19, and then one following the domestic finals – making the club season end around mid-March.
If the Six Nations was the held from the beginning of April for its usual eight weeks, the tournament would end at the very end of May/beginning of June, about when the club season currently ends. HOWEVER, now that there is no club versus country conflict anymore Georgia and Romania could be introduced into the ‘Eight Nations’. This would of course extend the tournament for around another three weeks (assuming an extra break week was added for player safety etc) bringing the Eight Nations to a close around mid-June – around the time of the summer test series. Summer tests would have to tick over a bit into July, but the Northern Hemisphere teams would be much stronger against their Southern counterparts after around eleven weeks of training together – extending the summer tests into the beginning of July wouldn’t affect any other tournament (the Pacific Nations Cup doesn’t start until-mid to late July and the Rugby Championship doesn’t start till late August). The Northern hemisphere boys would then get the rest of July to lap up the sunshine before pre-season begins in August.
It would be a long year for the Northern teams but they would each get at least seven break weeks during the season, plus a couple of weeks at the end of July as well. It’s still an insanely packed schedule which is one of the (probably many) problems with this idea.
I doubt this kind of format would ever happen but if it did it could be beneficial for both club and international rugby in Europe if players don’t collapse from exhaustion.
What do you think? Is a European Super League feasible?
my ignorant opinion 