Covid-19 is killing rugby
The sport can survive Covid-19 – but it won’t do so in its current form
When rugby writers start invoking images and utterances from Christopher Isherwood to Albert Camus and Marcel Proust — as some have done in the lockdown — you know these are desperate times.Not only is there not much to write about for the moment, there may not be much to write about for some time. Our winter pastime, which should be getting nicely under way by now, is being planned as a summer pastime. It may remain dormant even in the next winter if the "national command council" has its way, social distancing being the antithesis to scrumming down. Who knows, Ebrahim Patel may even regard the huge attraction of a British & Irish Lions tour in 2021 as being "unfair competition" to other sports.When rugby returns to normality, and that could be in years rather than months, the landscape is likely to look very different. The Wallabies, one of world rugby’s superpowers, may no longer even exist. Rugby Australia faces bankruptcy and player mutiny, and is unable to pay its bills with a...
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