Rugby Europe Looks For Six Nations Expansion

27 Oct 2015 | tshego

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President of Rugby Europe, Octavian Morariu, has urged the Six Nations to expand to give emerging European nations greater exposure and grow the sport.

Rugby Europe is the governing body responsible for the sport’s promotion, development, organisation and administration on the continent and Morariu has suggested that more teams be considered when World Rugby’s congress meets in London this week.

“Teams like Georgia and Romania proved themselves able to compete at the Rugby World Cup and need regular fixtures against top European teams,” said Morariu.

“We can all see the progress Argentina have made since entering the Rugby Championship. Argentina have added value to the game and we believe Georgia and Romania could do the same if they get more games.

“It’s not just about promotion and relegation to the Six Nations, it’s about opening the competition to more countries, so the competition could become seven or eight nations.

Morariu, a former Romanian player, as well as an IOC member, told sportindustry.biz: “It’s a path to be addressed by the Six Nations. It’s a fantastic competition and we don’t want to damage it, but we need to sit down and see how we can improve it in terms of attendance, commercial, sport and quality.

“There have been many discussions that no European or northern hemisphere country reached the semi-finals, we need to address that.”

On the commercial side, the Rugby Europe president added: “I think the markets will only react positively if the competition opened up, because it’s then proved that the Six Nations have a vision and sponsors are always keen to join people or organisations with a strategy.

“I strongly believe that the strength of our sport is around our values and spirit. If we are here and commercially viable, it’s because we are built on our values. One of Rugby Europe’s objectives through increasing participation is to promote, develop and convey our values to all generations.”