World Rugby warned of ‘existential threat’ as ex-Wallaby puts forward plans to rectify ‘global issues’

Former Australian international Brett Robinson has put forward his proposals to improve the sport as he seeks to become World Rugby’s next chairman, replacing Sir Bill Beaumont.

The 54-year-old is battling with John Jeffrey to take the key position within the game’s global governing body with the election set to take place in November.

Robinson suggested that there is an “existential threat” over “losing connection with our younger generation” and has backed moves to increase the speed of the game.

Speeding the game up

While those initiatives have mainly come from the south, World Rugby in general have made advances in that area by introducing a shot clock and, most controversially, removing the scrum option from the free-kick.

“It’s [Australia] the canary in the coal mine in terms of what is changing around the world,” he told The Roar Rugby Podcast.

“Structurally we’ve always had some challenges. We’ve also had the most competitive football environment in the world, and the things that we see here are often well ahead of when things might be occurring around the world.

“Our competitors of AFL and rugby league on a weekend realise something needs to be fixed and they can fix it quite quickly. Our system doesn’t enable that to happen as quickly.

“Broadly, there have been attempts to address it. But my challenge back to us is, can we do more? Can we do it faster? But I think there are encouraging signs.”

Robinson, being a former Wallaby, is also well aware of the financial issues impacting those in the southern hemisphere, especially in Australia, but there are also problems in the north.

While leagues in Japan and France are thriving, and countries such as Ireland continue to get it right on and off the field, that is not the case elsewhere.

Wages to revenue disparity

Wages are not being supported by organic revenue growth, which has hindered the likes of England, who have seen clubs fold due to the current fiscal strain.

“One of the great challenges for us is this tension around the economics of the game and the global macroeconomics of revenue versus cost,” Robinson said.

“We have wage inflation pressures not being supported by revenue that we can create.

“There are things we can do around revenue and we can talk about the Nations Championship, which I think is a wonderful thing that the game can’t walk away from again after it walked away from it in the last cycle.

“We have to embrace that opportunity to really maximise the revenue opportunity for the game for Tier 1 nations, but also for Tier 2 nations. There’s 24 teams that are mixed up in this project that’s mission critical.”

There is a slight divide in the hemispheres over how the game should move forward but Robinson hopes to unite the two.

He will seek to become the first person from the south to head the governing body but he faces stern competition from current vice-chairman Jeffrey, who is the favourite.

“Look, the first thing is to say this is not a hemisphere issue. These things I’m describing to you are global issues,” the ex-flanker said.

Nations Championship backing

Robinson has also placed his backing behind the controversial Nations Championship, which will take place every two years.

Critics of the tournament have claimed that it is simply a way of the bigger countries keeping the status quo by harming the development of the tier two teams, but Robinson disagrees.

“We see that the Nations Championship will, within those cycles, create another platform for significant revenue growth and I think something that’s meaningful for fans,” he said.

“Then this connection to the second tier of promotion-relegation enables us to really build out the second tier of competition.

“When we bring 24 teams to Australia [for the World Cup] – you might remember we’ve expanded from 20 to 24 teams – we’re going to have four more teams that are competing on the global stage.

“The Nations Championship is a critical path to giving them the competition environment that they need to be as successful and as competitive as they possibly can.”