Dear All

IRB MEDIA ACCREDITATION RWC 2007

This is an open letter to you, it is not confidential. I have written it to those of you I know on the IRB Council and in senior governance or management roles in national rugby unions in the hope that you can alter the IRB’s position on RWC media accreditation and that the IRB can find a balanced position with WAN.

I have copied it to WAN in Paris and NPA in New Zealand. I have copied it to David Kirk because of his understanding of rugby and media and I would have forwarded to one of Ireland and the Lion’s greatest wingers with similar interests if I had his contact details. I am not writing on behalf of anyone but myself. I am not retained by anyone on this matter. And, I do not expect any of you to go to the trouble of replying. I do hope you will do something constructive to achieve the balance needed. There are some of you such as Syd Millar and Bill Beaumont that I do not have email addresses for so the normal mail will be used.

I am writing as a past NZRU CEO, a person who understands the legal issues and sports business and non business issues involved, a person who is well aware of the importance of the IRB’s investment in the Pacific Islands and other developing unions and aware of the importance of RWC revenue to that investment continuing, a local rugby club chairman who understands the issues for the grassroots in New Zealand, a father of two rugby players aged 5 and 13 and perhaps most of all someone who loves the game for what is does for the character of those who play it, more than all the flash stuff at the top end, and wants to see it succeed at all levels.

The IRB, in its media accreditation conditions for RWC 2007, is properly seeking to defend its traditional and some new commercial rights but it is also improperly seeking to interfere in the gathering and publishing of news in the short term pursuit of the dollar by the IRB. There may also be competition law concerns for the IRB, where there are relevant commercial markets, if proper processes have not been followed.

WAN is clearly seeking only to protect the rights of its members to gather and disseminate news.

If you do nothing else after reading this letter ask the IRB’s CEO to confirm to you that IRB staff had, before he wrote his letter to WAN, valued the marginal income gains they seek to earn against the potential damage to your national union and the other rugby bodies in your nation. One would have hoped the IRB also had a strong external legal opinion on the legal issues, before they wrote the letter to WAN (the WAN and IRB letter are available from WAN’s website).

There is no excuse for underestimating the reaction of the media because FIFA faced similar issues with WAN quite publicly in 2006 and the IRB is seeking to go beyond what FIFA agreed after facing that reaction.

Even if rugby is the major sport in a country, which is the exception not the rule, the IRB’s position is dangerous to rugby, but if, as in most nations, rugby is not nearly the major sport the implications of the IRB’s position are much worse. Ask yourself if you are in one of those countries how easy it would be for the media to ignore or at least marginalise rugby between world cups or at least to do that below the professional level of the game if you are fortunate enough to have a professional game.

A recent global study concluded that the news media were in many respects, in the countries surveyed, that countries major professional sports "best advertising agency". I am sure Sky in New Zealand would say that of the wider New Zealand media for example. That study showed how the media’s coverage of the major professional sports totally dominates sports coverage. In only one or two countries is rugby the number one or two professional sport. It is therefore always at risk of being marginalised, even at the professional level. That may not be true once every four years when RWC rolls around but it is otherwise true everyday everywhere that rugby is played.

The current IRB position is bad for the grassroots of the game and the commercial partners of the professional and amateur game because it will cause media organisations to cut or marginalise the coverage of grassroots and professional rugby, stop publishing results and draws for free and to lessen the amount of media space given to rugby union compared to other sport. In the smaller places where editors allow sponsors names to be used in local and provincial rugby news coverage, because the editors understand the importance of those sponsors to the game, expect the favours to stop.

Even if economics was all that mattered it is obvious that the print and electronic media’s news coverage of rugby is the pay or free to air sports broadcasters best free advertising and if the broadcaster had to pay for it, it would pay less to rights holders like IRB. Further most of you will have valued the free news coverage of training jerseys and other signage in your pitches to sponsors.

But economics is not all it is about.

There is a much more important issue for media organisations and sports bodies like the IRB to consider - and - failure to get the balance right as regards that issue could imperil the soul of either or both.

The media organisations, the IRB and those of its members engaged in professional rugby are all in the media business but they are involved in more than that.

C.P. Scott was the editor of the Guardian when, in 1921, he wrote "A newspaper has two sides to it. It is a business, like any other, and has to pay in the material sense in order to live. But it is much more than a business it is also an institution. It reflects and it influences the life of the whole community; it may effect even wider destinies. It is in its way an instrument of government. It plays on the minds and consciences of men. It may educate, stimulate, assist or it may do the opposite. It has therefore a moral as well as a material existence, and its character and influence are in the main determined by the balance of these two forces. It may make profit or power its first object, or it may conceive itself as fulfilling a higher and more exacting function.

.... A newspaper is something of a monopoly, and its first duty is to shun the temptations of monopoly. Its primary office is the gathering of news. At peril to its soul it must see that the supply is not tainted". Nothing has changed except the technology which is how you do it not what you do.

Much the same could be said of any sports body like the IRB or a national rugby union. Replace the word newspaper with IRB and say its primary office is the promotion of rugby. Rugby union is a business but it is also an institution. It also has a moral as well as a material existence. Rugby’s character and influence are also in the main determined by the balance of these two forces. Rugby governing bodies may make profit or power its first object or it may conceive itself as fulfilling a higher and more exacting function.

A previously cynical Australian judge got it after he watched the Sydney Olympics with a fellow judicial sports cynic and said: "I came to realise a universal truth. Sport can unite people in peaceful competition, plumb the depths of human abilities, test the nobility and courage of the human spirit and emphasise things we can all understand simply because we are humans. Similar themes lie at the heart of human rights."

IOC President Jacques Rogge got it when he said "Because sport is based on ethics and fair competition, the governance of sport should fulfil the highest standards in terms of transparency, democracy and accountability".

It is the highest standards of democracy that the IRB is falling short of with the proposed media accreditation agreements and the approach outlined in its letter. That approach is imbalanced - totally focused on the dollar - mitigated only by the stated use of the proceeds.

Sports organisations often claim special recognition from governments. The current IOC and FIFA discourse with the European Union is an example of that. In order for the IRB to claim to be more than a business and to deserve any special recognition, it must get the balance right. Both the accreditation conditions and the IRB letter to WAN suggest that the IRB has not got the balance right. Those opposed to sports having any special place will use the IRB’s letter to great advantage - particularly if the IRB does not change its stance.

Failure by bodies like the IRB to observe human rights norms in pursuit of the dollar undermines rugby as a sport as much as drug cheats do. Such a failure undermines democracy in the nations in which rugby is played and it undermines the fundamental ethics and values of sport, and rugby in particular.

One of the most fundamental human rights is the right of freedom of expression and the freedom to gather and publish the news is fundamental to that. Any media organisation that does not first and foremost defend the right to gather and publish news against a sports body that seeks to commercialise news put its soul at peril and lets us all down. WAN is seeking to protect those rights. The paradox is that a sports body lets itself down as well when it does not defend those rights. Such a sports body also lets down, all who support sport, and lets down all who support that sport in particular. Do not let the IRB be such a sports body.

There has to be a balance between the IRB’s understandable desire to maximise revenue and the democratic right of the news media to gather news.

I would hope that you would be able to ensure that the IRB’s management is encouraged to find that balance with WAN before lawyers argue the balance and the courts determine the balance. The IRB cannot rely on the matter not being pursued in the courts by WAN and other media organisations which, if that was to happen, would be a further waste of rugby money.

It is said that "Rugby has fully embraced the professional era, but has retained the ethos and traditions of the recreational game. In an age in which many traditional sporting qualities are being diluted or even challenged, Rugby is rightly proud of its ability to retain high standards of sportsmanship, ethical behaviour and fair play. It is hoped that this Charter will help reinforce those cherished values." Those are the concluding words of the IRB’s Charter of the Game. I would like to think we could say that in one hundred years time and not just ten years after professionalism - a stage of development at which many other professional sports might have claimed the same thing. Rugby’s traditional qualities are only starting to be challenged by commercial forces. It would be sad if it was the IRB that led rugby away from those "cherished values".

While the IRB Charter is supposed to guide action on the field one would hope it can also guide the IRB’s actions off it so that, while embracing the professional era, rugby union could avoid diluting the right of the press to gather and disseminate news and thereby maintain the highest of ethical and democratic standards. If rugby can get that balance right it has the chance to remain proud and define a very special place in professional sport.

adidas’s CEO, Herbert Heiner, told me in Dublin, at the end of a day in which he had seen his first rugby match, attended his first after match and test dinner (thank you again Ireland) and agreed to extend the adidas sponsorship of the All Blacks for seven more years, that rugby would be much more commercially valuable if it held onto its traditions and values in the face of the commercial pressures. He was and is right.

This is a time to realise that the media were with us when we were not professional and they are with us now and news is still news however delivered. The revenues of the game can be sustained while protecting the right of the media to gather and disseminate rugby news. Most importantly rugby can be more commercially valuable if it does not follow those sports that have sacrificed democratic values and their own traditions and standards for dollars.

And, finally let nobody forget that this world cup is being played in a country where thousands of rugby players fought, were wounded and died along with millions of other people around the world so these fundamental human rights could be enjoyed by all people. Go to the graves of those players buried on those battlefields and tell them that you would sell what they died to protect for all of us for a quick buck or two.

Yours sincerely

David Rutherford