Who the hell do you think you are? Oh…
Early in 2015, the English RFU were in touch with their New Zealand counterparts about getting the All Blacks to play at Twickenham in November 2017. The NZRU asked for £1.5m so the negotiations stalled.
English officials reconsidered the out-of-window Test after the ABs reclaimed their World Cup title.
The new asking price, £3m.
That’s half the expected gate receipts for a sell-out at Twickenham. The RFU told them to do one, offered seven figures and were told ‘no thanks’ by the Kiwis. The RFU are still seething about it. A senior English source told The Rugby Paper:
“With no international fixtures yet arranged after the 2019 World Cup, the All Blacks are playing hardball. They’ve made their position clear: ‘We’re not coming to play you guys in the north unless we get the global season that suits us, ie from February to November.”
The source notes how New Zealand are testing the American market by playing Ireland in Chicago, this November.
The Barbarians offered to take on the All Blacks rather than England but the world champions would prefer to play a World XV side.
