KEY POINTS:
New Zealand Rugby's stand-off with News Ltd over broadcast payments for next year's weakened Super 14 has an interesting parallel in Europe. French clubs - led by one of the greats of French rugby, Serge Blanco - are threatening to boycott the Heineken Cup.
The New Zealand Rugby
Union decision to rest 22 All Blacks from the first seven weeks of the Super 14 brought a rebuke from News Ltd, whose broadcast payments are the financial mainstay of professional rugby in the Southern Hemisphere. However, after some public dispute, News Ltd decided to wait and watch what happens in the Super 14 before deciding whether to ask for a financial adjustment in the fees they pay to rugby.
A similar situation has arisen in France involving the World Cup - although this dispute also has roots in rather more basic issues - money and power.
The French clubs, headed by former fullback Blanco, are threatening a boycott of the Heineken Cup as part of a complicated wrangle involving TV, money and player availability because of the 2007 World Cup in France.
The French are joining with the English - an unnatural cross-Channel alliance if ever there was one - who are similarly disaffected by issues such as encroaching international assignments for their players and a perception that Wales, Ireland and Scotland wield too much power
in the Northern Hemisphere game.
In Europe, players are contracted by clubs, representing them first and everyone else, including their countries, second.
In such a system, the wealth and power of the clubs can increase until, as is now happening, they alter or attempt to alter the overall axis of rugby power.
Also involved in the French dispute is a broadcaster - France's Canal Plus (Canal+) who are negotiating a new domestic television contract for the Top 14 League. Because of the rugby programme rescheduling due to the World Cup, some Top 14 matches will have to be played during the World Cup.
Canal+ have offered less money for the Top 14 TV coverage as a result, which prompted the French clubs to threaten to make room for the games by pulling out of the Heineken Cup matches to ease the calendar congestion.
Now the French clubs are hinting at getting into bed with rival broadcaster FR2 to up the money.
The boycott, if it occurs, will punish the Celtic rugby nations to the extent of about £2 million ($6 million) each and suits the English clubs, who feel the Celtic rugby nations have too much sway.
Most observers are picking the Heineken Cup will go ahead but that there will have to be concessions made to French and English clubs.
England's clubs have so far declined to sign a new deal covering the Heineken Cup, as they are in dispute with the Rugby Football Union over the number of votes English rugby has in the Paris Accord (which governs the European competition).
It is exactly this type of dispute that prompted former All Black skipper Sean Fitzpatrick to write last month in the Herald on Sunday about his deep concern for the world game.
Fitzpatrick said that club powerbroking plus such issues as player rotation threatened to pull the heart out of the game by rendering it dull and unwatchable.
