South Africa’s rugby franchises could find themselves out in he cold if reported plans of a merger between the United Rugby Championship and the Gallagher Premiership go ahead.
The UK’s Telegraph reported that English Premiership chiefs want to create British and Irish competition, with South African and Italian teams excluded from future plans.
Alternatively, an Anglo-Welsh competition has also been mooted, and has received some support from Wales due to Welsh teams struggling to make their mark in the URC. However, the British competition is favoured due to its commercial appeal.
The talks of the merger reportedly took place during last year’s Rugby World Cup in France, and have since resumed with with exploratory work being done to see if the plans could be viable.
Should they go ahead and form a British competition, that would leave South Africans teams out in the cold after the country walked out on Super Rugby during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2021.
In the three seasons since, South African teams have gone from strength to strength and have hosted every final, with the Stormers beating the Bulls in 2022 to be crowned the inaugural URC champions.
The competition has also been valuable to the Springboks, who have since cemented their spot at the top of the World Rugby rankings after winning a second straight World Cup last year.
IOL Sport
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