Doha — When Akbar Al Baker – the Group chief executive of Qatar Airways – speaks, people tend to listen.
The Qatar Airways boss made a grand entrance to the partnership announcement with the United Rugby Championship, Champions and Challenge Cups at Hamad International Airport in Doha on Sunday.
He first had a few quiet words with the big shots of the rugby organisations present, such as SA Rugby president Mark Alexander, URC chief executive Martin Anayi and European Professional Club Rugby executive Anthony Lepage.
Then Al Baker ventured across to some of the URC players and Qatar Airways staff, including Bulls flyhalf Johan Goosen and Glasgow Warriors scrumhalf Ali Price for a short chat and a few laughs.
But then the big boss mentioned that he would like to see some rugby matches take place in Doha one day … There’s no doubt that Qatar are flexing their muscles to be a major player in the global sporting landscape.
They are hosting the Fifa World Cup in November, and have also had Formula 1, MotoGP and other sports come to the country.
Now they have signed a three-year deal to become the official South African airline partner of the EPCR (European Professional Club Rugby), and the official airline partner of the URC.
Alexander said in a media briefing on Sunday that it was a major relief to SA Rugby, as travel made up a massive chunk of their expenditure.
But the next step is to actually play matches in Qatar, and Anayi is the man who needs to spearhead that conversation.
“The stadiums are being built for the Fifa World Cup, and a few of them are being deconstructed and moved abroad. And then three or four are being reduced in size and are still indoor, and air-conditioning … the size could be 20 or 30 000. Could you say pre-season, and create pre-season tournaments,” Anayi said.
“The games I think are something we’ve got to build up to, and probably start with something that is a new competition, or a new pre-season tournament, or something like that.
“And if it goes well, can we build something on that? We don’t want to close anything off, but at the same time, we want players to play less competitions. So, we’ve got to balance that up with new territories.”
Anayi added that rugby bodies “have all been working in silos for too long … somebody thinks somebody else is doing better than they are. The reality is that the game is still very young in terms of professionalisation, and what you are seeing today is a major union, and two competitions coming together”, and that the effects of Covid-19 on the rugby landscape has forced the sport to look for other avenues and bring in new money – which is what the Qatar Airways deal is all about.
Anayi also agreed that having the SA teams in the URC has proven to be a major success. “We started on performance. If the game was better and more competitive, add that depth to the tournament … Just Irish teams winning finals. Surely more people would watch,” he said.
“Tough start for the SA teams last year, but they came back and the Stormers won. Did that shock anybody? I don’t think so. I know how seriously the Irish teams were taking them, and they were the biggest proponents of bringing them in.
“But this (Qatar Airways deal) wasn’t the initial end-game. We thought we just wanted to make the game better, and then other stuff would follow.”
IOL Sport