Planning on penury – the 2015 Rugby World Cup

£2,860 is a lot of money. There are many things that one could buy with such a sum: a week’s holiday at the five-star Hilton Dubai Jumeirah Resort for a family of four; a 65 inch Smart 3-D television from Samsung; a 2009 registered Fiat Panda with 34,000 miles on the clock. Alternatively, you could take that same family of four for an afternoon out at Twickenham to watch the Rugby World Cup final in 2015. Let that last bit sink in for a moment.

Twickenham debenture holders learned last week that if they want to watch the final they will need to stump up £715 per ticket to watch the match. A minimum wage worker doing a 40-hour week would have to work nearly 3 weeks to buy their ticket - and let's hope they're not remotely hungry during that period because they’ll have nothing left to buy lunch.

I would dearly love to take my family to the game. Being an optimistic soul, I would hope to watch the All Blacks lift the Webb Ellis trophy for the third time. However, at that price I am faced with two dilemmas.

The first is the cost; can I really justify spending that much money to watch an 80 minute rugby match? Secondly, there is my somewhat blotted copybook when it comes to watching the All Blacks play live. I'm not sure there is another person on the planet whose win/loss record when watching the mighty Blacks play is worse than mine.  This is, after all, a team that has a 76.17% win record in international matches over a 130-year history.  Their worst single-nation record is against South Africa where they’ve only won on 57.47% of occasions. I only got to the 50% mark when I saw them beat England at Twickenham in November last year.  In the 12 times I have seen them play, I have seen them win six, draw one and lose five. So if there is a connection between my presence and the All Blacks’ performance, I have to question whether or not I should be anywhere near the stadium, especially considering the amount of money that I might have to fork out to watch them lose.

All of which brings me to the point. The Rugby Football Union is taking the piss. In England in particular, rugby has been, to a greater or lesser extent, the preserve of the middle classes. However, increasingly, it is stretching out to a grassroots level. This should be fostered and encouraged and there can be few better ways of achieving this than providing access for younger players to witness world-class rugby at the highest level.

Now the RFU will argue that they have an obligation to debenture holders (which is absolutely right) and that thereafter, first preference for tickets goes to rugby clubs and schools around the country.  At those eye wateringly expensive levels, I don't doubt that a significant proportion of tickets will be returned unallocated or find their way into the hands of those for which they were not originally intended. I know there is a balance to be struck in hosting a financially viable World Cup, but it stands to reason that the Rugby World Cup final will largely be funded by corporate hospitality, which leads of course to another pet irritation of mine, empty seats.

There are only 80 minutes of play in a rugby match, two halves separated by a 10 minute interval.  In those 10 minutes, the guests of the Corporates are expected to get through a sumptuous meal and drinks before returning to their seats.  Now I like a pie and a pint as much as the next man, but I’d be buggered if I was going to yield to a glass of vino at the expense of missing even one highly priced minute of the World Cup final.  Many however, will stay at the table rather than return to their seats.  Even sandwiches don’t curl in 40 minutes – let your stomachs wait; get back to the match, the beer won’t have time to go flat!

I don’t doubt for a moment that the final will be sold out, clearly illustrating that market forces will be in play and that supply and demand economics will prove the RFU’s very greedy case.  I somehow suspect, however, that I won’t be there.  Although having said that, if the All Blacks make the final, there might be one or two folk from the country opposing them that would happily fund my presence in the hope that my influence will be the undoing of New Zealand’s national team.

Equally, there may be many in New Zealand willing to pay me NOT to attend.  There’s a thought, on the basis that I’m considering taking the family, the cost to keep me away might just be a little below £3,000.  I think I’d be more than happy to watch the final from the bar at the Hilton Dubai Jumeirah.