I noticed to change your post and you do obviously know nothing about European law if you think IRB regulations take precedence.
I also notice that you are totally confused between the various European bodies as La hague has nothing to do in the process. It is the trade comission and the european court of justice (court of first instance) based in Luxembourg which are likely to get involved, neither the ICC based in La hague nor the European Court of Human Rights based in Strasbourg.
If the IRB tries to stop the new cup from happening, it is going to be a breach of the law.
The clubs must follow IRB regulations (rules, equity, doping control...) as long as these regulations are not meant to stop the event from happening in the first place
And BTW, a lot of unlawful behaviors keep going in multiple areas until somebody has the guts to challenge them, the fact that they have been unchallenged so far does not mean they are lawful (ex Bossman).
And yes the European Court can ask the IRB to withdraw their regulations extremely easily but the process is costly and time consuming, whether this story will go to court is anybody's guess.
You still don't get it do you?
The iRB is not in the business of running domestic or club rugby competitions. Its not in the business of negotiating television rights for such competitions either. Its doesn't even directly run the Rugby World Cup (that task is delegated the RWC Ltd).
What the iRB does is manage the overall game worldwide. IRB Regulations are a framework to ensure that the game is administered in a uniform manner everywhere it is played throughout the world. Specifically, the contentious (to you) Regulation 13 is there to prevent EXACTLY what you mistakenly think it causes. It exists for the purpose of preventing any individuals or groups from abusing or misusing a dominant market position for their own gain at the expense of other interested parties. Its does this by placing private individuals, groups and other rugby bodies under the stewardship of the National Union responsible for the game within their own territories. Regulation 13 doesn't prohibit organisations like PRL from negotiating TV rights, its simply there to make sure that they have the National Unions permission to do so.
Regulation 13 was put in place in 1996 to prevent any possible repeat of the near disaster that took place in the 1995 "Rugby War", when the World Rugby Corporation, under the control of Kerry Packer, tried to create a rebel rugby "circus". Without Regulation 13, there would be utter mayhem as dozens of different "fly-by-night" organisations vie for broadcast deals. Anyone with enough money could simply "buy the game of rugby". In Australia, Rugby League had a similar occurrence with the "Super League" in 1997, a rebel competition that arose after a failed attempt by Rupert Murdoch to buy the TV rights off the NSWRL
In acting the way they did, PRL are in fact in breach both of iRB Regulation 13 and Article 82 EC, in that they sold rights that were not theirs to sell and they did so without the approval of the RFU. They also acted in grossly bad faith, negotiating with BT (starting long before they gave notice of their withdrawal from the HC) while they were supposedly still negotiating with the ERC. This is precisely the sort of dirty dealing and shonkey business practice that Regulation 13 is supposed to prevent, and which is supposed to be illegal under Article 82 EC. I think you fail to understand that iRB Regulations and European Law are working
together here, NOT against each other.
None of what has been going on has anything to do with the alleged unfair advantage of qualification systems for the Celtic Nations. It has little, if anything to do with revenue distributions either; those are just convenient smokescreens to obfuscate what this is really about; two, and only two things... power and control.
The club owners want total and absolute control over all aspects of European domestic rugby. They want to completely shut the National Unions out of the picture, so that they have absolute power over their players. If they are allowed to succeed, it will be the greatest catastrophe for the game of Rugby Union since The Great Divide of 1895. The game will be set back by a decade. Competitions like the Six Nations and the European Nations Cup will be seriously affected as National Unions are forced to pay enormous prices to use their players (if they can even get them at all) for international competition. Smaller nations will certainly have to beg for access to their players.
