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SPAIN has emerged as the country seeking inclusion in an expanded Super Rugby competition in 2016 but Australia’s five franchises have told the Australian Rugby Union bluntly to veto any move into Europe.
The Australian players’ union, the Rugby Union Players Association, has gone even further, claiming that any expansion, be it to 17 or 18 teams, “would place considerable doubt over the sustainability of Australian Super Rugby”.
SANZAR has agreed in principle to the addition of a sixth South African team and one from Argentina to the existing 15-team competition but also is deliberating whether to admit an 18th team that would make possible the retention of the conference system.
A state-backed Singapore franchise has emerged as the favoured option for the long-discussed push into Asia, though Japan and Hong Kong have far richer rugby pedigrees.
But SANZAR chief executive Greg Peters and the CEOs of the Australian and New Zealand unions, Bill Pulver and Steve Tew, all have spoken of Super Rugby morphing into the world’s pre-eminent rugby competition, indicating that any enlargement of the competition in 2016 would simply be the intermediate stage in making Super Rugby global. And that points to a long-term strategy to expand into Europe when the 2021 broadcast deal is done.
Rumours of a European country seeking admission in 2016 have been circulating for some time, with Italy initially nominated and then discounted.
The mystery nation was identified as Spain when Pulver raised it as an expansion option in a meeting with Super Rugby franchise CEOs on Tuesday.
Read more: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/spor...1226846451990#