Virginie Phulpin 2:18 p.m., June 03, 2022

It's official, five South African teams will join the European rugby cups next season.

And this is not really good news for the editorialist Virginie Phulpin who considers that if it is necessary to "internationalize rugby", "we could have waited for the 2023 World Cup in France to see the South African stars treading our land".

EDITORIAL

From next season, five South African teams will join the European rugby cups.

If this should attract more and more spectators and allow Europeans to discover the South African stars of the oval ball, this is not really good news for the editorialist Virginie Phulpin.

"The supporters of Stade Rochelais did well to gather at the port with 35,000 to celebrate their European champions as it should be a few days ago. We had to take advantage of it, because they will be the last real European champions We will be able to invent the opposite counterpart to OM's cult phrase "forever the first".

"It looks like the worst inclinations of football"

Next season, I don't know what the winners will be called, but European Champions, that won't work anymore.

North-South champions, perhaps Greenwich meridian champions.

Even if it doesn't quite fit, it will be more accurate than talking about Europe with five South African teams.

I must be a little reactive, but a European Cup, I find that not bad between European clubs.

And then why distort a competition like that?

So yes, I understood correctly.

It's about attracting a new audience, internationalizing rugby, ensuring that the European public sees the reigning world champion South African stars more often.

But in fact, it will above all end up disgusting everyone with these little arrangements with values.

Looks like the worst inclinations in football, and that's not a compliment.

The South African stars, we could have waited for the 2023 World Cup in France to see them set foot on our grounds.

It would have kept the exceptional side of a World Cup.

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They are going to play more, when we keep saying that the calendars are already overloaded, they are going to do more kilometers, spend time on the plane rather than recover optimally between two matches.

So there will probably be more injuries.

And in any case more fatigue, that's for sure.

Let's not complain during the World Cup that the players are worn out and that they don't give their best.

By dint of wringing them, after a while, there is no more juice.

All this for a hybrid competition that will lose its meaning.

And then the EPCR, roughly the equivalent of UEFA in rugby, prides itself on having significant environmental commitments.

And that's true.

At the end of March, for example, it organized a waste collection in the Calanques of Marseilles.

To clean up and raise awareness of beach and sea pollution.

How many will have to be organized, collections, to offset the carbon footprint of these cups in Europe and South Africa?

Lénaïg Corson, one of the best players in the women's XV of France, is very committed to the planet, she participates in the CSR projects of French rugby, that is to say the contribution of French rugby to environmental issues.

And there, she is quite taken aback.

I think we can understand it."