European Rugby Champions Cup pool stages draw
The draw for the inaugural European Rugby Champions Cup has taken at the Stade de la Maladière in Neuchatel, Switzerland with many fancied teams facing tricky paths to the knockout stages.
Pool 1 appears to be the toughest with Heineken Cup finalists drawn against Munster, Clermont Auvergne and Sale Sharks, while Ulster will face reigning European champions Toulon, Leicester Tigers and Scarlets in Pool 3.
PRO12 champions Leinster will be bidding to return to the top of European rugby when they take on Castres, Harlequins and London Wasps in Pool 2.
Glasgow Warriors, who were beaten in the PRO12 final by Leinster, face Montpellier, Bath Rugby and Toulouse in Pool 4, while Aviva Premiership champions Northampton saints have been drawn with Racing Metro in Pool 5 alongside Ospreys and Benetton Treviso.
setanta
European Rugby Champions Cup draw
POOL 1
Saracens
Munster Rugby
ASM Clermont Auvergne
Sale Sharks
POOL 2
Leinster Rugby
Castre Olympique
Harlequins
London Wasps
POOL 3
Toulon
Leicester Tigers
Ulster
Scarlets
POOL 4
Glasgow Warriors
Montpellier
Bath Rugby
Toulouse
POOL 5
Northampton Saints
Racing Metro 92
Ospreys
Benetton Treviso
The European Rugby Challenge Cup draw threw up some interesting pools with Connacht set to face Exeter Chiefs, Bayonne and La Rochelle.
Cardiff Blues were drawn in Pool 1 alongside London Irish and Grenoble, with teh final team yet to be determined.
Pool 3 sees Stade Francais paired with Newport-Gwent Dragons, Newcastle Falcons and the second unknown team, while Edinburgh, Bordeaux, London Welsh and Lyon will fight it out in Pool 4.
Gloucester Rugby face Brive, Zebre and Oyonnax in Pool 5.
European Rugby Challenge Cup draw
POOL 1
Cardiff Blues
London Irish
Grenoble
FIRA-AER 1
POOL 2
Exeter Chiefs
Bayonne
Connacht Rugby
La Rochelle
POOL 3
Stade Francais
Newport-Gwent Dragons
Newcastle Falcons
FIRA-AER 2
POOL 4
Edinburgh
Bordeaux
London Welsh
Lyon
POOL 5
Gloucester Rugby
Brive
Zebre
Oyonnax
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The European Rugby Champions Cup and European Rugby Challenge are the new European Rugby tournaments that will run from next season, replacing the Heineken Cup and Amlin Challenge Cup respectively.
European Rugby Cup Ltd which was based in Ireland and ran the European tournaments since 1995 is due to be wound up and be replaced by a new organisation known as European Professional Club Rugby (EPCR). EPCR will have a board of directors comprised of 9 stakeholders which will come from the Six Nations Unions and clubs in England and France and Wales Regional Rugby. However, the power will lie with the clubs from England, France and Wales as commercial decisions are due to be made by a 5 person executive committee, consisting of representatives from these three areas, ECPR’s Director General and an independent chairman.
Proceeds from the Champions Cup will be distributed equally to the three ‘domestic’ European leagues, currently known as the Aviva Premiership, RaboDirect PRO12 and the Top 14. A portion of the revenue will be kept aside and given to the teams who progress beyond the group stage.
The Champions Cup will be contested by 20 teams, made up as follows: 6 clubs each from the Aviva Premiership and Top 14 and 7 clubs from the PRO12, with the proviso that at least one team from each of the 4 countries that take part in the PRO12 are included. The final place is to be taken up by a team winning a play off competition. For the inaugural competition the play off took place between teams who ended 7th in the Aviva Premiership and Top 14. England club London Wasps are the team to have qualified this way for next season’s Champions Cup by defeating French side Stade Francais in the home and away qualification games. In future there will be a qualification play off between the teams who end 7th in the Premiership and Top 14 and the 8th and 9th placed PRO12 team or the two highest PRO12 teams who have not already qualified.
The format for the new tournaments will also be different in that instead of the 6 groups that there used to be in the Heineken Cup there will now be five groups of four teams. As in the past though each team will play each other home and away in the group stages. The five group winners and best three runner up will then progress to the knockout stage (quarter finals) with the four best pool winners getting to play their quarter finals matches at home.
The new business model appears to mean that neither of the two new competitions will have a title sponsor, in the past these were Heinken and Amlin. The competition will be rather more like the UEFA Champions League in football where there are several commercial partners.
There is no fixed end date to this competition but instead it will continue unless a group decides to pull out. To do this though they will need to serve two years notice and this cannot be done within the first six years of the competition starting.
One of the biggest stumbling blocks during the lengthy negotiations seemed to revolve around television rights, something at the time I dubbed the ‘Battle of the Broadcasters’. However, this seems to have been resolved for now with rival media groups SKY and BT Sport apparently agreeing to equally share the broadcasting of the games involving English clubs for the next four years. The broadcast deals for the French clubs and PRO12 teams may already have been finalised as well but we are not aware of what these are at this stage, any feedback on this will be most welcome.