TREIZISTE DIARY
This month I’ll start with the most unexpected digression possible by asking the readers of Rugby League World a simple question: Do you know what a tardigrade (or water bear) is?
Just in case you don’t feel like Googling the answer, it’s a tiny animal that is able to live in an environment that would kill any other animal. Wikipedia claims it can survive radiation at hundreds of times the level that would be deadly to humans.
It is an animal we should take as a mascot of France instead of our traditional rooster.
Why is that?
Because last month French Rugby League was struck with a huge blast, an atomic bomb-level explosion: of course, I’m not referring to the bright success of Limoux who won the Men’s Elite 1 championship (34-24 against Carcassonne) but to the cancellation of the France 2025 Rugby League World Cup.
A number of overseas journalists had already broken the story before the official confirmation eventually came that due to a reduction in financial support from the French state, the whole competition was to be cancelled. I was one of those who didn’t believe the initial rumours, based upon a possible but already planned meeting between the organising committee and the International Federation. My expectations were more that we may have a world cup reduced in scale, played at some secondary venues, or even on some new territories for rugby league.
In France, we remained hopeful until the end, encouraged by the names of the few rare cities announced as hosts of the competition (Agen’s application was big news), even the most unexpected ones like Bergerac in the southwest. Prime Minister Castex had given his word in January 2022, so what was left was only a matter of details, surely?
The French newspaper ‘L’Indépendant’ tried to find out more; they received from the organising committee a formal response they published in their columns, loosely translated as: “We’ll get back to you later”! A similar kind of answer I had received in the past every time I contacted the committee.
I may have also practiced some self-censorship; given that on social networks each move of French Rugby League is harshly criticised by those who should support it, I didn’t want to join the eternal detractors with my concerns, but those concerns did still exist.
First of all, a poll published at the launch of the French organisation of the World Cup and reported in the press kit which claimed that 88% of the French public had a favourable view of the project and supported it. But only people living in the southern regions (Occitanie, Nouvelle-Aquitaine, Provence Alpes Côte d’Azur, and Auvergne-Rhone Alpes) had been asked, with a sample size of 1,800 – a tiny amount in such a large country as France.
Secondly, the low-profile attitude of the committee; very few communications were published, you had to go on the internet and carefully monitor the media to learn anything, and sometimes it was from indirect sources which is very unusual in France where organisers of a project such as this would usually be shouting about it a lot.
When he was questioned by ‘La Depêche du Midi’ about who could have done a better job for this project, Director Michel Wiener pointed, among other stakeholders, to the media.
But no one saw any promotions, no ads, no commercials since the original January 2022 announcement in Paris. And, it may be a trivial sign, but the Twitter account of the France 2025 committee only attracted 1,500 followers. Some emerging nations and even some American RL clubs have much more. Twitter is still the social network preferred by media and journalists in France, and you don’t need a communication agency to know that.
Did the committee try to work with the rare media and people who already cover Rugby League in France? I’m not sure. As far as I’m concerned, I did what I could to remain positive but I couldn’t invent a narrative.
Feed the media and the public if you want them to cover you.
Thirdly, in various sources very few host cities were announced and different consecutive deadlines were announced. A bit confusing and not encouraging.
Now, let’s examine the scale of the disaster and its possible explanations.
A drastic cut to the original 59 million euros budget (£50.5m) was reported, but the French state actually only gave 950,000 euros (£813,000 ), just to run the project. The rest of the budget was supposed to come from private resources and local governments, mainly cities. Cities, which must, unlike the French state, balance their budgets and can’t afford deficits.
But it is very noticeable that only a few cities responded and Avignon, in particular, sent a lethal signal for the project when they declined to be involved.
This is how all French public projects work; the French state remains an organiser, a facilitator, but the local authorities pay the final bills. An international project actually depends on local accounting.
The organising committee suggested inflation and the Ukraine war interfered with the economic predictions of those stakeholders (but to reassure RLW readers: in France, we still don’t have to use wheelbarrows full of banknotes to pay for our baguettes). As a result of that, the committee declared they couldn’t guarantee a balanced budget anymore.
In such a context, the die was cast.
Following the bad news, the president of the French Rugby League Federation, Luc Lacoste, who had championed the prospect of France hosting the world cup, offered to be challenged by a vote of confidence to keep his job; a challenge he won with 80% support.
So where does French Rugby League go from here?
We, the French tardigrades, I mean the Treizistes, will survive this, on a local and a regional scale.
The second ‘Magic Weekend’, combining all Grand finals except the Elite 2’s this year, was promising with more than 8,000 people attending the event.
The Catalans Dragons are doing very well in the Super League, but remain confined to the same area and their success depends financially on Bernard Guasch and his company; if someday he gave up or left it would be difficult for anyone to take his place.
Toulouse Olympique are presently a top team in the Championship but are not at all sure to be promoted to Super League and even if they were, they will have to contend with decisions made to preserve the interests of the majority of English clubs. There would be no protection from relegation for the major city of Airbus Industries and Aérospatiale and which saw the first flight of the Concorde.
The international calendar is empty or almost; so far no one can see any international perspective other than the England v Tonga series or the NRL promotional match in Las Vegas, USA.
I’m starting to believe that even if I have no concern about our survival, we’ll probably be the sacrificed generation of French Rugby League.
But the next generation is fortunately coming.
Generations of young treizistes who don’t even try to watch Rugby League anymore on French TV which chooses to feed its viewers with foreign football rather than domestic sports. Youngsters who are not afraid to leave the country to experience a new life and career in UK or in Australia, at ease with the latest technologies and able to view whatever they choose on a variety of platforms.
All we have to do is not discourage them with too much negativity, and pass on the baton to the future Treizistes stakeholders, because they may have the solutions of tomorrow.
First published in Rugby League World magazine, Issue 486 (July 2023)
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