Rugby alle Olimpiadi, una voce contraria
Inviato: 17 ott 2009, 10:12
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/others ... Games.html
Rugby's claim for inclusion is even shakier than golf's. If the adult 15-a-side version of the game was not viable, why should the Olympic members contemplate sevens as opposed to, say, touch rugby? It is all rather second-rate and explains why rugby has spent so long trying to get in.
But there is an even bigger reason why rugby should be turned down long before golf is finally rejected. The governing body has a quite disgraceful record on promoting the game worldwide.
The Royal and Ancient, golf's governing body, can reasonably highlight all the money and expertise it has offered to developing countries in recent years. From Bhutan to many of the poorer African countries, the R&A has gone thousands of miles out of its way to provide support.
But the International Rugby Board is run by a cabal of countries who have kept most of the cash for themselves. The RFU is spending just under half a million pounds on a vainglorious bronze statue of rugby players, money that could have gone towards the game's global development. Typical.
Four years ago rugby had the chance to give the 2011 World Cup to Japan but it voted instead for New Zealand, one of the original 'big eight' countries. Yoshiro Mori, the president of the Japanese RFU, said: "It's the old boys' network of the IRB at work."
When the governing body allowed rugby to turn professional in 1995, it forever killed the chances of the smaller nations to compete and grow. How could Romania afford a professional game? It was the moment when rugby should forever have been cast out of the Olympics.
Rugby was a game of self-preservation run by the greedy and the selfish. Now who does that remind me of? I'm seeing the letters IOC. On second thoughts, maybe rugby and the Olympics is a perfect marriage made in hell.