Bordeaux-Begles 38 Bath 26
BORDEAUX — Maybe Bath were simply out-battled by a better team in this Champions Cup semi-final on foreign soil, but you wonder if Bruce Craig and Sir James Dyson and the other mega-moneyed types already running clubs in England, or rumoured to be investing soon, are going to redress the financial balance, to help end the drought of success in this tournament that now extends to six years.
Since Saracens and Exeter Chiefs won Europe in 2019 and 2020 respectively, the title has gone to French sides in Toulouse and La Rochelle twice each, followed by Bordeaux-Begles as first-time winners over Northampton Saints in Cardiff last year.
Taking some of the financial brakes off the English game must surely be raised at the swanky dinner tables in the new world of Premiership franchise clubs coming to a town near you, soon.
The scale of spending by the American investors linked to Exeter Chiefs and a new venture in Birmingham has yet to be revealed. No plans to raise the salary cap or even get rid of it have been publicly aired.
Ben Tameifuna with what could be the decisive score for Bordeaux! There's no stopping him in that situation #InvestecChampionsCup pic.twitter.com/mGe9EVKZy6
— Premier Sports (@PremSportsTV) May 3, 2026But Craig, the owner of Bath since 2010, and still chasing an elusive European title after this defeat, and their Prem title triumph last season, is already worth multi-millions.
And as we saw on the big screens of the stunning Stade Atlantique Bordeaux Metropole, in those classic shots of the Roman emperor-ish line-up in the directors’ box, Craig is now sitting side by side with the similarly cashed-up Dyson, after the latter was recently announced as taking a 50 per cent stake in Bath Rugby.
Dyson made his money from mass-produced vacuum cleaners and you wonder if he yearns to be free to clean up with the likes of Ben Tameifuna, Bordeaux’s New Zealand-born Tonga prop who at 150kgs looks and plays like a fridge-freezer on legs.
To do so, it would help to loosen the constraints of the cap that sits at a basic £6.4m per squad, with a recently introduced salary minimum spend of £5.4m, and payments for England-qualified player quotas.
The practical difference in the strength of an English club squad set against one from France can be as simple as the next brute coming round the corner at you being just a little better and bigger than the one you can throw into the fray.
Not even Bath fly-half Finn Russell could work his usual magic (Photo: Getty)Or a lot bigger, in Tameifuna’s case.
“Big Ben” sounded the death knell for Bath when he battered over for Bordeaux’s fourth try in the 69th minute, to make the scoreline 31-19, having rumbled on from the bench 18 minutes earlier.
At that time his fellow substitutes were Cyril Cazeaux, a four-times capped France lock, and back-rower Temo Matiu, who made his debut for Les Bleus against England in this year’s Six Nations.
Bath were able to throw on Sam Underhill, Ted Hill and Miles Reid in response, while asking their eminent South African tighthead Thomas du Toit (who is leaving in the summer) to go through 74 minutes.
These are not savage chasms in talent, but differences they are, linked to the money on offer in this country.
And then there are other factors to consider.
Bordeaux are not packed with superstars from outside France, because the “Jiff” system of ensuring French-qualified players are well represented in the domestic league, the Top 14, has mitigated against a team like Toulon in the 2010s fielding a team of galacticos – Jonny Wilkinson, Bryan Habana, Bakkies Botha and so on – to win Europe three years in a row.
But this has also arguably revitalised and reinforced a powerful and proud rugby culture, to their benefit.
When you see 40,000 Bordelais folk massed in a futuristic football stadium for this semi-final, to sing their team through to the deciding showdown in Bilbao in three weeks’ time, you are reminded of the scale and depth of the French rugby ecosystem, nurtured and underpinned by decades of competing in leagues, club against club, town v town.
Laurent Marti, who was a couple of seats away from Craig, has been the chairman of Bordeaux-Begles since 2007, having made a mint in textiles and clothing, but his club also have a list of sponsors as long as both of your arms, and then some.
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Hugh Godwin: Owen Farrell’s journey to England coach has begun Hugh Godwin: Why Exeter Chiefs’ US takeover brings relief and trepidationThen there is France’s domestic TV contract with Canal +, which is just over double the one in England, when comparing the respective top divisions alone, and so all things considered, the spend on player budgets are generally reckoned to be at least 50 per cent higher here; in some cases much more.
Leinster will be Bordeaux’s opponents on 23 May, and they come from a different system again: centrally funded by the Irish rugby union, well supported by big Irish businesses, with tax advantages to keep players at home, and a wealthy schools set-up underpinning.
Money won’t solve everything for England’s clubs in this competitions, but some influential forces may decide soon that spending more of it could be a substantial help.
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