Should There Be Transfer Fees in Rugby?

Rampaging future rugby union/league star and current YouTube hit, Taniela Tupou

It is only natural to expect plenty of new experiences and problems in the early days of rugby union as a professional sport.

One thing that is likely to be talked about over the next couple of years is whether rugby union - and rugby league for that matter - should introduce transfer fees like in football or some other form of compensation over the loss of one player from one club to another - in US sport, franchises trade draft picks to get a player.

This was recently brought up by Blues coach, John Kirwan when asked about the future of Taniela Tupou who has been courted by rugby union and league as a result of his efforts on the rugby field captured on YouTube.

This will become more apparent as more players transfer between clubs, particularly if it involves a player that is highly prized by one club, who is in demand by several other bidders.

Who will rugby's first 100 million dollar man?

Imagine how much the transfer fees would be for someone like Dan Carter or Richie McCaw if we were to apply to rugby the same economics applied to football, i.e. consider the sub-$100 million dollar fees for Cristiano Ronaldo or Gareth Bale.

I think transfer fees would be a good way for clubs to gain financially from the loss of players that they have nurtured over time. If say Club A wanted Player 1 who has been nurtured by Club B through the academy or feeder union for 5 years, Club B could value the player for X amount and Club A would have to match or raise that fee to attain Player 1.

In football, transfer fees are the lifeline of "smaller" football clubs as it allows them to strengthen their clubs by using the transfer fees paid to buy new players or invest in the club. Take the Gareth Bale example late last year - the money from the 100 million euro transfer fee was used by Tottenham to buy at least 8 world class players.

On the field, it might not have worked out for Spurs this season but it was a huge win for the club who can build for the future.

The same case applied for Everton who benefited greatly when they sold Wayne Rooney to Manchester United for a then record fee for English football.

Transfer fees could possibly assuage the emotional damage caused by our players going overseas, especially given that the European and Japanese clubs going after our players should be able to afford the transfer fees if we chose to incur them.

So I am all for transfer fees in rugby although they would need to be tinkered a bit slightly to avoid the financial blowout that has taken place in many of Europe's football leagues.