Top-priced seats at Twickenham for England’s blockbuster fixture against New Zealand in November will cost £195 apiece when they go on sale this week, with the Rugby Football Union dismissing any prospect of a Test revenue-sharing agreement with less‑wealthy visiting nations.
Steve Brown, the RFU’s chief executive, says the “heavy” top-range tickets are comparable with other major sporting events and sees no reason to amend the traditional model of home unions retaining all ticket proceeds. The previous RFU chief executive, Ian Ritchie, suggested New Zealand should build a bigger stadium and Brown’s message to his NZ Rugby counterpart, Steve Tew, was similarly blunt.
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“They don’t get a slice because that’s not the way the market works,” Brown said. “Steve Tew got a very nice slice from the Lions tour recently so maybe I should phone him.”
The RFU says it could have sold out its 82,000-capacity stadium 20 times over, such is the demand to attend the England-All Blacks game, but a limited number of £20 child tickets have been introduced to deflect accusations it is pricing out families and youngsters. “It’s the blockbuster, we haven’t played them for four years and the demand is exceptional,” Brown said.
The union also plans to stage one of England’s 2019 Rugby World Cup warm-up fixtures in the north, most likely in Manchester or Newcastle, having been encouraged by the “fantastic” response to England’s 2015 World Cup pool game against Uruguay at the Etihad Stadium. “I was quite surprised with the impact of England playing in Manchester at the World Cup even though it wasn’t a great time for England,” Brown said.
The RFU’s leading officials, meanwhile, are compiling a long list of possible candidates to succeed Eddie Jones as England’s head coach. Jones is assisting with the process which Brown expects to gather pace this summer. “The long list will get short fairly quickly, I’d imagine. There are not 25 people out there who could take that job.”
Despite England’s fifth-place finish in the Six Nations this year, the RFU insists it retains full confidence in Jones to revive the team sooner rather than later. “We’re reassured the plans he has in place are robust and we’re confident they will take us to a good place in 2019,” said Brown, insisting “the stats do not indicate” the Six Nations squad was overtrained. “History tells us that that [finishing fifth] is not the norm for England.”
The union also insists it will be happy if the New Zealand-based Brad Shields leapfrogs several homegrown candidates and is capped by England in South Africa in June, before he has officially joined Wasps. “I think we shouldn’t constrain ourselves from a performance perspective by not picking those players,” Brown said.