All Blacks coach Ian Foster says a future Vodacom Super Rugby tournament cannot carry weak links and should only include competitive and financially viable teams.
With the 2020 Super Rugby season suspended indefinitely due to the coronavirus pandemic, doubts have been cast over the overall future format of the tournament that has involved five countries – Argentina, Australia, Japan, New Zealand and South Africa.
There’s a strong possibility that Rugby Australia and New Zealand Rugby could leave Sanzaar altogether and form a trans-Tasman alliance, thus creating an Australasian competition to replace Super Rugby.
But as the unions have looked to start negotiations, tensions have escalated with regard to how many teams each country would have in this hypothetical trans-Tasman competition and which union would get the majority share of the broadcast and the private investment money.
NRZ wants all five its franchises to be incorporated into a new competition and only two or three Australian franchises and thus also a bigger slice of the income generated from the tournament.
Over the past week, the mudslinging and bickering have continued non-stop as a hosts of people from both sides have commented and made snide remarks about the other – with Foster now adding his voice to the ongoing saga.
‘We’ve got to do whatever we can to get competitive teams against our teams,’ Foster said.
‘We’re pretty secure in our five franchises, so once they [Australia] get their number [of teams], I guess we sit around and have a conversation,’ Foster told NewsHub.
‘This is not a charity. We’ve got to actually make sure they’re feasible, they’re financially viable and the public are going to really get in behind them.
‘It’s got to be competitive, it’s got to be financially viable. We’ve seen in the past that if you let in teams that actually can’t survive, then you’ve got to keep changing the competition around.’
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