BORIS STARLING

CAN WE SAVE RUGBY?

FIFTEEN MATCHES OVER FIVE WEEKENDS in February and March, each laying down another layer in rivalries which mostly go back more than a century. The simple iconography of white, red, green and three shades of blue. Thousands of rugby fans good-naturedly drinking various European capitals dry. Welcome to the SIX NATIONS, one of the best annual sporting events in the world and a reliably effective antidote to the winter doldrums. This year, however, the storm clouds are hovering, for rugby is a sport in crisis. Two Premiership clubs, Wasps and Worcester Warriors, went bust last autumn, and several more are hanging on by their fingertips: few clubs made a profit even before the Covid pandemic, and all of them are trying to recover from the effects of that time. Former…

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The Critic (Digital) - 1 Issue, February 2023

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