Q&A – Simon Halliday: Revised Euro Cup formats will provide a great narrative

As chairman of EPCR, the former England, Bath and Harlequins centre has spent recent months laying the ground for a new eight-year deal that, as he tells NEALE HARVEY, will enshrine the future of the Champions Cup and open the gateway to a new World Club Cup.

How relieved were you to finish last season's European competitions? 

There was a time when we were very worried. But as we hunted through the calendar, we alighted on two dates in October that were ours, then managed to negotiate a date for the quarterfinals and kept our fingers crossed it would hold together.

It was a relief but when you look back and know there should have been 70,000 people for two finals in Marseille but we ended up with 1,000 in Aix-en-Provence and no one at all in Bristol, it was very hard to take. For the staff worked so hard to bring those big finals to fruition, to sit at home and watch was very difficult.

Europe starts all over again this week, how confident are you of avoiding Covid disruption? 

We have protocols and have worked hard with the leagues to ensure we keep people fit and able to play, but there's no accounting for what Covid can do. We had one match (Leicester v Castres) cancelled last season and there were issues around Stade Francais and Racing 92, so we weren't immune from it.

You've seen what's happened with the Barbarians and Fiji so, regrettably, we have to be prepared for the worst and there's maybe no time to rearrange matches. There has to be the same process as the Autumn Nations Cup, but people have got used to the protocols now and most games are getting played. Coronavirus rates are going down, so I'm staying positive.

You've changed the Champions Cup and Challenge Cup pool structures dramatically. What's been the rationale there? 

We knew we'd have to adapt and there's been an awful lot of creative thinking around how we could produce a season that would work given the huge amount of pressure on everyone in the game. Compressing the season was inevitable but we believe we've produced something that works and the more that we've looked at the new formats, the more we like them.

We've reduced the number of Champions Cup pool games while eliminating the need for sides in the same domestic league to play each other and there won't be as many dead rubbers.

We've also had very positive feedback on having home and away quarter-finals that will provide huge commercial opportunities and excitement for players and spectators. Out of adversity we've come up with formats that provide a great narrative and we'll monitor and review them to see what we might take forward.

What was the financial impact on EPCR of the Covid disruption? 

First, it was important that we completed the tournaments because it's only from the semi-final and final that we earn revenue; in earlier rounds it goes elsewhere. Any reworking of contracted revenue we talk to broadcasters about, but their viewing figures were actually stronger because of no fans in stadiums so we were not as affected as some.

The general position, while downwards, is sustainable, but the distribution to the leagues is not where it was. That's why, when we are looking forward now, we're looking at lots of initiatives such as a World Club Champions Cup which will bring a new sense of adventure and added value to our tournaments, which will ultimately benefit leagues and unions.

EPCR was inaugurated in 2014 when the Heineken Champions Cup was revamped, how do you feel the organisation has fared?

There are lots of views over how EPCR have performed. The leagues have got so much stronger in that time and are more in charge of their own destinies, and obviously the recent deal between the PRO14 and CVC has been another example, following on from Premiership Rugby, of how structurally there's been a lot of change.

So, we have conducted a pretty lengthy independent review of where we (EPCR) are, what we are trying to achieve, what our business structure looks like, how can it be better and asking what improvements can we make within the context of rugby's moving landscape.

We've actually been very fortunate that we were having that review at the time the pandemic struck, so while the direction of travel is the same it's accelerated things we were going to do.

The review is complete, the recommendations have been adopted in their entirety by the EPCR board and the last six months have been about implementing those recommendations into something workable for a new heads-of-agreement with the leagues which will take us through to the end of the next decade.

Can you give us a flavour of what those recommendations entail? 

We will ensure decisionmaking procedures are sharpened-up because when we were set up six years ago a lot of the outputs were based on the fact EPCR was moving from a union-based tournament to a club-based tournament and it was quite a political settlement which had its roots in history.

It's been the right time to look at how we could all make ourselves more commercially relevant, to take all the good things, of which there are plenty, push them forward and, most crucially, bring the leagues into the decision-making process.

What you're going to find are the efforts of the leagues' commercial, financial and operations directors will be much more prevalent in the EPCR decision-making process. You might say that sounds obvious but when the thing was set up the leagues were quite different to what they are now. They've moved on and it's entirely appropriate that we should be the outcome of all the best ideas and resource that's available to us from the leagues, without removing the fact they're EPCR tournaments still. It just means ‘best practice' will be our watchwords.

When EPCR was set up, the hope was for a stable of five or six topline sponsors for the Champions Cup. But that never materialised, how disappointed are you by that? 

It is a disappointment, no doubt. That was the plan and we set ourselves up like that, but there were a number of factors behind why we never achieved that ambition and undoubtedly Brexit was a major one – it was a reason used by a lot of companies to do nothing. Companies who were global or pan-European suddenly became very localised and country-specific, which meant that when you came to them with a competition that encompassed the UK, France, Ireland and Italy, we had people telling us they'd do something in, say, the UK or France but not anywhere else.

It became a difficult package to sell and we were trying to rebrand the Champions Cup at a time when there was increasing pressure developing in all sorts of other areas. Therefore, in mid-stream we came to an agreement with Heineken again in 2018. There was a great realisation on both sides that the Heineken brand was so powerful that they deserved to be at the top of the tree.

What's the current state of play with TV and sponsorship deals? 

Every single agreement we have expires on June 1, 2022. If we sat here and did nothing, every TV deal, commercial deal and participation agreement would just go. As far as broadcasting is concerned, that goes for the entire distribution around the world and the prime markets in France and the UK, with BT Sport, Virgin Media and Channel 4 all involved in the mix here.

It's all up for renewal and the way in which the sport of rugby has become so fragmented over a period of years means there is a bucket of money available for certain types of broadcast relationships. You've just seen Amazon Prime becoming involved, there's OTT streaming as well and all of these things become relevant to the broadcast market.

We're assessing all those things and we have got a bit of time because we're not renewing for 18 months, but we've got to be aware that if there's a pound or euro to be put into rugby, we're not the only rugby asset out there.

We've got our own stakeholders in the Premiership, Top 14 and PRO14, then you've got the Six Nations, the Lions and everybody else, so we've got to be really aware of the changing landscape and there's the added probability of the South Africans becoming more involved in an expanded PRO14.

The evolution of what a broadcaster finds useful is changing by the month but we have enough commercial nous within our leagues and EPCR now to embrace that challenge and drive our commercial success.

There's a perception that European rugby is being emasculated by the top leagues, are you concerned by that? 

I'm not sure I agree. If you asked what the standout game of this year was, you'd probably say Exeter v Racing in the Heineken Champions Cup final.

It was a fantastic game of rugby, with or without a crowd, and if you actually ask the players they'll tell you that European rugby weeks bring an extra edge.

The Champions Cup is international rugby in club jerseys and the involvement of the leagues in the way we operate is a reflection of the fact we will soon have a new eight-year agreement and European rugby remains a huge part of that. It all works together to create a good outcome and enhances the importance of the European cups, and I include the Challenge Cup in that.

I was going to ask about the Challenge Cup, it seems very unloved at the moment? 

We're having to mix and match a bit this year with a 14-team pool stage and greater alignment with the Champions Cup, but the fact is a lot of the knockout stage matches of the Challenge Cup this year would have graced the Champions Cup.

It's filled with top teams now and it's gratifying that the leagues and unions have had a chance to think about their commitment to Europe and have all said to us that the Champions Cup and Challenge Cup are embedded in their long-term future.

You could not necessarily have said that two years ago because it was too early in the cycle and it was easy to say ‘we're not too sure', but as people have had to make decisions over where they see the future of club rugby, both Europe-wide and globally, the Champions Cup and Challenge Cup are right in the middle of everybody's planning process.

If the Champions Cup is to be seen as European club rugby's pinnacle, surely the final should be a last game crescendo to the season? 

I agree with you and it's been brought up regularly. Ultimately, we respect our shareholders whether it be Premiership Rugby, LNR or the PRO14 and they've got businesses to run with big finals and the rest of it, but to my mind the Heineken Champions Cup final should be the culmination and that debate needs to continue.

I believe the more the clubs are enmeshed in this tournament and start realising the real value of it commercially, things might change. The whole calendar is up for debate with World Rugby at the moment anyway and no one's saying ‘That's my date, hands off !' because we all understand the need for flexibility. However, I would like to see a day when the Champions Cup final once again becomes the pinnacle.

Teams from Russia, Romania, Georgia and Spain etc are notably absent from European competition this season, so what's their future? Have you ditched them?

We've put a pause on the Continental Shield this year but to all those people who say we're only interested in the elite, we remain committed to emerging nations. It became logistically very tricky and expensive to keep those teams involved and we did talk to Rugby Europe about it, so as a result we decided to stop tournaments until we can find a way to do it more effectively.

Seeing teams losing by 70-100 points is not a good look for the Challenge Cup so we've taken a break there as well, but we're now investigating an opportunity which could see a fourth league created in Europe which would operate with separate investment.

We would have an involvement commercially and if you talk to Andy Robinson in Romania, he'll tell you that they have a 45,000-seater stadium in Bucharest where they're trying to get together a really strong Romanian franchise.

Barcelona is also talking about a franchise, and Georgia too, so wouldn't it be great to see some really powerful club rugby emerging within untapped markets in Romania, Spain, Georgia, Russia, Portugal, Holland, Belgium and Germany? It's on our agenda so don't fear about us ignoring the development nations.

With major South African teams like the Bulls and Lions set to join the PRO14, how soon do you expect them to become part of the European competitions?

We are subject to proposals by our stakeholders and EPCR wouldn't speculate on anything like that unless it was brought to us. When the Cheetahs and Kings came into the PRO14 there was never any proposal made to include them in European competition, but we can all see which way the wind is blowing so if these top South African sides do become part of the PRO14, I'd fully expect a proposal to be made.

What's the score with the longmooted, but as yet undelivered World Club Cup? 

Hosting a play-off between the champions of the north and south has been in our gift since EPCR was set up six years ago – it's in our heads of agreement with the clubs. It hasn't happened yet for logistical reasons but what we're looking at now is the opportunity to play a World Club Champions Cup once every four years, substituting the latter stages of the Champions Cup to accommodate this.

It doesn't just happen, a lot of planning needs to go into it and World Rugby are talking about it as an ambition of their season structure talks, so subject to it being realisable within a revised calendar, which I hope it is, we'll work with the various authorities to make it happen. Seeing, say, Exeter Chiefs playing the Crusaders might whet a few appetites and the players would love that to happen.

One positive thing from the pandemic is that it's accelerated a lot of these discussions because everyone realises that we can't just endure the status quo, we have to be more ambitious. The commercial imperatives have been building up around the game and we have to be better, although we might need to limit the number of kicks from hand!

Funny you should mention that! As an attack-minded former player, would you like to see more emphasis placed on free-running rugby? 

If teams that kick the most win, as we are currently seeing, it tells you something about the laws of the game.

It's taking the excitement out of it and fans would be leaving the stadiums if all they had to watch in future were endless box-kicks and scrum resets, so we have a job to do to change the dynamic there.

No one's saying you want basketball rugby but let's take out some of these technicalities around caterpillar rucks and talk about the value of quick ball instead. Current trends could infect the whole game across all hemispheres if we're not careful and that's not something we want when we're trying to sell the game to new audiences. People want to see something special – and something special is NOT kicking the ball up in the air or resetting a scrum.

I really worry about this because we need to attract fans and players should not be afraid to run or make line-breaks.