Twickenham to be renamed the Allianz Stadium
The RFU has been debating the future of its famous home for a long while. Factors like the Covid 19 pandemic and an urgent need for repairs to the fabric of the stadium have led to this distasteful outcome.
The situation had become so desperate that, from what we can discern in the RFU’s statement, the word Twickenham disappears from view.
So when you tell your friends you are going to the Allianz to see a game, they won’t know whether you intend visiting Minnesota, Munich, Nice, Sao Paulo, Sydney, Turin or Vienna – unless they know you tolerably well, that is.
If you’re a Saracens’ fan, you’ll recall the days when the StoneX Stadium went under another name, but then the German Allianz insurance company took over the Premier 15s instead.
Colm Holmes, the boss of Allianz UK, makes the claims you would expect from a muti-national corporation that knows its own punching power. But when he says it seeks “to create the best experience for fans, players, and local communities” – he adds the startling words: “Allianz Stadium is no different.” He conveniently overlooks English rugby and the history of the ground. An Allianz Stadium in TW2 is monumentally different, just one of a forest of identically named arenas springing up around the world.
It remains to be seen what controls the RFU has retained over the use of this newest Allianz acquisition. Till now, they have been ultra-careful about the uses the stadium is put to. If the new contract gives the people in charge of affairs at Allianz sufficient rights, these could extend way beyond what we have known in the past. The catch comes in Holmes’ foggy statement of “further opening this iconic venue to many others.”
Who are these others, and how often will they be using the site? Will a visit by the latest pop superstar take precedence over a traditional rugby match? That is precisely what happened at the Stade de France.
A brief Comparison
It’s a small irony that the news breaks as most sporting eyes are fixed on the Stade de France. I’ve been there more than once to see England’s men’s team win and lose to the locals. One thing that struck me was the strip of athletics track surrounding the playing area, a feature typical of hundreds of rugby and football grounds around France. The inevitable result is that spectators are removed further from the field of play than is desirable.
But the Stade is a multi-purpose arena, seen at its best in the past few days as we’ve witnessed memorable individual and team displays. But there is little or no chance of the Red Roses, or indeed any of the other five women’s teams in the Six Nations, ever playing there. The FFR has to pay vast sums of money to stage their men’s games. Their treasurer knows it could spell financial ruin if he bid for les Bleues to use the ground.
Making ends meet
Therein lies the conundrum the RFU faced. To balance the accounts, they needed to play as many games at HQ as possible. But even the gate of 58,000 at the last England-France game was no guarantee of a profit. That is the scale of the problem.
We can only hope that the RFU’s recent decision to host one Red Roses 6N game per year on the sacred turf can continue. But first, the Black Ferns are due there on 14 September, barely five weeks away.
It would be lovely to think that ticket prices could come back under control. Over the past two decades or more they have risen almost as fast as the German mark lost its value in 1922-23.
One small ray of hope that is unlikely to lighten the world of rugby: Allianz might feel compelled to throw more of its weight behind German rugby, which still struggles to gain a footing in the national sporting firmament.
At present priority is given to 7s, as in many countries. If the women’s 15s team were better supported with Allianz muscle, the Red Roses could find another opponent worthy of their consideration. And Nora Baltruweit, Germany’s one representative in the Prem 15s at Wasps, has just joined Exeter Chiefs from Stade Bordelais.
