{"id":437286,"date":"2026-05-20T21:12:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-20T21:12:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/437286\/"},"modified":"2026-05-20T21:12:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T21:12:10","slug":"dan-biggar-weighs-in-on-south-africa-champions-cup-debate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/437286\/","title":{"rendered":"Dan Biggar weighs in on South Africa Champions Cup debate"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Dan Biggar believes that South Africa are in a strong position when it comes to their Investec Champions Cup future, thanks to the power they currently wield having overtaken the All Blacks as the sport\u2019s leading brand.<\/p>\n

It has been widely reported that SA Rugby are considering exiting the Champions Cup, with president Mark Alexander stating that they \u201cwill have to decide which competitions will be retained and which ones we can drop\u201d due to the heavy workload on the players.<\/p>\n

Alexander later backtracked on those comments, stating that it was just \u201cspeculation\u201d and the July meeting was more about finding a \u201cnegotiated balance\u201d between competition commitments.<\/p>\n

They ultimately have a number of things to weigh up, including the financial hit they may take by exiting the tournament.<\/p>\n

That is something Sharks owner Marco Masotti spoke about, insisting that he would pull funding should SA Rugby make that call.<\/p>\n

EPCR will also no doubt have a say, but Biggar believes that South Africa hold all the aces when it comes to negotiations.<\/p>\n

Springboks have \u2018replaced the All Blacks\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cThey just hold so much power in the game at the minute. The Springboks<\/a> are the big brand at the minute in world rugby, they\u2019ve replaced the All Blacks<\/a> as \u2018that\u2019 brand,\u201d he said on The Rugby Pod.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re in such a strong position to effectively call the shots on what they want to do because everything is working for them, the money is flowing in, they\u2019ve got all the power, they\u2019ve got the sponsors.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe TV deal is up in a year\u2019s time for the Champions Cup<\/a>, so who knows what\u2019s going to happen there. Premier [Sport] may go back in again, or another company may come in and then it\u2019s negotiations again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite seeing them in a strong position when it comes to negotiations, Biggar has questioned their commitment to the competition.<\/p>\n

South African franchises have found it difficult to balance the United Rugby Championship and Champions Cup, and have often fielded weakened teams in the latter.<\/p>\n

Biggar therefore criticised Masotti\u2019s stance and insisted that the Sharks\u2019 approach to the Champions Cup did not back up the owner\u2019s comments.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Champions Cup is a strange one because for the Sharks owner to come out and say that, and then not pick their best team to go and play abroad, that\u2019s when you lose your argument in that sense,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re in it, you\u2019re in it, so you can\u2019t be half-pregnant on this, can you? You\u2019ve got to be, \u2018right, we\u2019re fully in on this and we\u2019re going to get it\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s all well and good saying that but you\u2019ve got to be in it as well. I know you could say the Sharks won the Challenge Cup and that\u2019s probably as good as it got for South Africans in Europe over the last couple of years.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt does make it difficult, the travel, playing in freezing cold one week and then you\u2019ve got to go to 35 degrees in Cape Town the following week.\u201d<\/p>\n

SA Rugby president backtracks on comments following Champions Cup controversy amid South Africa\u2019s \u2018unique problem\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n

View of former Scotland and England internationals<\/p>\n

Joining Wales great Biggar on the show was former Scotland international Jim Hamilton, who believes that the Springboks stars are not as committed when featuring for their franchises.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe players that are playing in the URC or if you\u2019ve got Handre Pollard at Leicester, you tell me, and this is with all due respect, are you getting the Eben Etzebeth that\u2019s playing against the All Blacks playing for the Sharks? You\u2019re not,\u201d Hamilton said.<\/p>\n

\u201cMarco, who I\u2019m a big fan of and I really like Marco as a bloke, you can understand from his perspective that he wants to get the snorkels out and be part of the celebrations for the Challenge Cup, but it\u2019s just not working.\u201d<\/p>\n

The third member on the panel was ex-England fly-half Andy Goode, and he somewhat disagreed with Biggar\u2019s view that they can dictate negotiations.<\/p>\n

Goode feels that they do not have many standout options available to them.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Saffas have three or four choices. One is leave as is, you play in the Champions Cup and URC,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen [number two is] you can either pull out of the URC or the Champions Cup.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re pulling out of the Champions Cup, does it make a material difference? Not really because there are only four group games and then the knockouts, which they\u2019re not in that much anyway. Do you therefore pull out of the URC?<\/p>\n

\u201cThe other option is to have your own league, which is the Currie Cup anyway, and how much money is in South Africa?<\/p>\n

\u201cCommercially, they have to be in other competitions to make money or you go back to Super Rugby. There\u2019s no quick and easy fix for them here.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe other thing is that their national team mirrors the southern hemisphere, but their club teams mirror the northern hemisphere, so they\u2019ve got themselves in this pickle.\u201d<\/p>\n

READ MORE: Rassie\u2019s reckoning: How the 2026 Nations Championship squads will write the first draft of Rugby World Cup 2027<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dan Biggar believes that South Africa are in a strong position when it comes to their Investec Champions…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":437287,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[223683,1463,1464,136582,111,43,139,69,14861,1466,213],"class_list":["post-437286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-dan-biggar","tag-home-page","tag-internationals","tag-investec-champions-cup","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-sharks","tag-south-africa","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437286","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=437286"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437286\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/437287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=437286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=437286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=437286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}