One of the key features of grown-up team sports the world over – in other words, all of them apart from football – is the separation of the professional game from the amateur. This means that at some point in the hierarchy there is a level from which a team cannot be relegated.
Rugby union in England is in the midst of a long, torturous attempt to join the grown-ups, which is not easy given the total dominance in the prevailing culture of football, but it has recently taken the most politically charged step away from the madhouse by closing its top tier. This leaves only rugby in France still rooted in the ways of football.
