Six Nations compromise on seven-week format

Rugby administrators used to be indecisive; now, they are not so sure. The great and good of the Six Nations organising committee gathered in Paris yesterday to consider an overhaul of the tournament and ended up sipping their pink gins in a half-way house. They could have been far more radical, but radicalism never did sit easily with the arch-conservatives of the union code.

Rugby administrators used to be indecisive; now, they are not so sure. The great and good of the Six Nations organising committee gathered in Paris yesterday to consider an overhaul of the tournament and ended up sipping their pink gins in a half-way house. They could have been far more radical, but radicalism never did sit easily with the arch-conservatives of the union code.

From 2003, the tournament will be played over seven weeks rather than the current 10: a block of two matches on consecutive weekends, followed by a week's break, a one-match resumption, another break, then two more matches to wrap the whole thing up. The games will be played in February and March – just where the broadcasters want them, and just where England's professional clubs would prefer them not to be – and will take place on Saturdays and Sundays. Friday night matches, quite the daftest idea to emerge since William Webb Ellis first picked up a ball and ran with it, were considered and formally rejected.

The new format, which will remain in place for a minimum of five years, has the word "compromise" stamped all over it. Even so, there was a split in the ranks. The Welsh Rugby Union, bitterly opposed to any tinkering on the grounds that the interests of their travelling supporters should come first, were left high and dry by the Irish and Italian unions, both of whom signalled a change of stance at a meeting last month. "We thought a revamp required unanimous backing, but obviously we were wrong," a WRU source said last night. "Apparently, a majority vote is acceptable provided the tournament is not being shifted to a different area of the calendar."

England, who had pushed hard for a six-week format, were just about content. "We believe the decision is a step forward," said Francis Baron, the chief executive of the Rugby Football Union. "With so many interested parties involved, a compromise had to be made." The Premiership clubs were decidedly lukewarm in their reponse, however. "The location of the championship in the calendar is of crucial importance to the structure of the season, and this issue needs considerable debate," said a spokesman for Premier Rugby, pointedly.

According to Baron, the England players will be released to their clubs for the two non-Six Nations weekends, which rather defeats one of the prime objects of the exercise: a blocking off of the tournament in order to allow the national coaches to work with their squads on a full-time basis. Indeed, it is hard to see what practical difference will be made. At present, the élite players are lumbered with a one-week-on, one-week-off routine. Under the new system, they will still be expected to chop and change in the middle of the tournament.

For all that, the agreement has created a valuable opportunity to impose some sort of logical shape on a northern hemisphere campaign shot through with conflicts of interest. With the Six Nations finishing on the last weekend in March, there will be nine or 10 weeks between the final round and the end of the season – just enough time to play the two European club competitions, the Heineken Cup and the Parker Pen Shield, in their entirety, thereby generating the momentum craved by supporters, broadcasters and sponsors alike.

Meanwhile, Premier Rugby has given its blessing to a new dash for cash by agreeing to progressive salary cap hikes covering the next three seasons. The limit, currently £1.8m per club, will increase by three per cent a year until the end of the 2004-05 campaign, by which time the professional outfits will be permitted to spend a maximum of £1.97m on players' wages. The decision was said to be unanimous, although a number of major investors were known to be alarmed by the idea of loosening the reins.

Over-spending on players caused enormous damage to the top-level game during the early years of professionalism, but a number of leading clubs – Leicester, Bath and Northampton in particular – have grown increasingly exasperated by the vast amounts of francs being thrown around by the more ambitious French outfits, not governed by spending restrictions.