Pugh: rugby's navigator on a rocky road

Vernon Pugh dragged rugby union, kicking if not screaming, from the age of the amateur to full-blooded profess- ionalism in what amounted to a revolution in France in August 1995. The fallout is still being felt.

For more than 150 years the game had recoiled from paying players, but at a three-day meeting in Paris, Pugh blew the amateur principles asunder and declared rugby an "open'' sport. It was not what the die-hards expected.

As the first elected chairman of the International Board, Pugh, a QC, persuaded the delegates that they had no choice but to vote for radical change. "If we had not taken that decision then, I have no doubt the game would have disintegrated,'' he said later. "It seemed to me that the special ethos of rugby was not irrefutably linked to the non-payment of players. It just could not be proven.

"We had to acknowledge the changes which had taken place. The southern hemisphere had put building blocks in place for professionalism. There was no point in fiddling about. It was too late for evolution.''

Pugh, who died on Thursday aged 57 after a battle with cancer, was brought up in the Amman Valley, the son of a miner. He had a first-class brain but it was not used to play first-class rugby. He went to Aberystwyth University and to Cambridge, where he played rugby, at centre, but failed to win a Blue. He was called to the Bar in 1969. As a barrister he specialised in common law; as a rugby administrator he specialised in tackling shamateurism.

The game had become big business, but the laws stipulated that players could not be paid. Pugh knew the law was an ass because people were being paid right, left and centre – unofficially.

Pugh had not sat on a committee until a friend talked him into standing for the Welsh Rugby Union, and his application was lodged only 10 minutes before the deadline. In 1993 he became the first chairman of the WRU general committee, and chairman of the IRB a year later.

As recently as the 1980s the Corinthian principles still applied, and among those declared ineligible for infringing regulations were Bill Beaumont and Fran Cotton, both later to play major roles in the Rugby Football Union. The first World Cup was launched in 1987, the year after the New Zealand "Cavaliers'' toured South Africa, where they were paid to play, although not openly.

In 1994, again preceding the threat of a televised professional circus in the southern hemisphere involving Louis Luyt, the head of South African rugby, and Rupert Murdoch, Pugh chaired a working party on amateurism. Seventeen months later, Pugh ended the hypocrisy. He was at the forefront of deals with television and sponsors, set about expanding the World Cup, helped Italy turn the Five Nations into Six, and developed the Heineken Cup.

"Professionalism brings problems,'' Pugh admitted. "There is a danger of the ethos being polluted, and that is why we must have strong managers. We have to stand up to aggressive commercial concerns who want to put money solely in the pockets of the few. The great thing about rugby is that it has respect for itself. Because of the nature of the game there is also respect for individuals, from unglamorous prop to high-profile try-scorer.''

During his term as the chairman of the IRB, he said he found the lack of authority of the board "quite distressing''. He said: "We had to show who was in charge.'' He did so, but since his absence the authority of the IRB has again been brought into question.

And problems still exist, most obviously in the small competitive base, which is reflected every four years in the World Cup.

In outlook and philosophy the game has changed dramatically, and is played by every colour and creed, from Andorra to Zimbabwe. But as it has grown so has the gap between the haves and have-nots, and Pugh's vision of a world in union remains a dream.