There's an undeniable fascination for anybody with a trace of Irish blood in their veins in seeing how a group of our own fare in the big bad world of British sport. Along with the Drumaville consortium at Sunderland, Dermot Desmond and Eddie Irvine are heavily involved with Celtic, John Magnier and JP McManus frightened the life out of Manchester United when they worked their investment in the club up to the 30% mark . . . and promptly sold it to Malcolm Glazer . . .

while John Courtney, with a little help from Roddy Collins, had every Irish sports fan scanning the lower reaches of their stats page to see how Carlisle United had got on the day before. Our economic success over the past decade has ensured Irish businessmen have been in a position to dip their toe in the British sports market, but the reason they've crossed the water is because there aren't a lot of sporting investment options at home.

Sure, the horse racing and golf industries enjoy heavy financial backing from Irish financiers, but when it comes to team sport, there's something of a famine for investors with millions to spare. The GAA is wholly amateur and is likely to remain so for the medium term at least, domestic soccer is a professional sport in parts but highly unlikely to yield any reasonable return.

And then there's rugby.

Effectively, the game is the only professional team sport worthy of the title in the country but the IRFU are sole proprietors and funders of all four provincial sides. At the moment there's no opportunity for private investors to gain a slice of the action, but if there was, there'd be no shortage of business folk queuing up to get involved, according to those in the know.

"I think there'd be plenty of investors looking for some action if the IRFU opened the door to the Irish provinces, " says Alistair Gray of Genesis Consultants, the Scottish strategic management company who've worked with both the FAI and the IRFU in recent years. "Leaving Connacht to one side, they're all are very attractive propositions. One of their biggest selling points is they way they've managed to maintain the link with local rugby in the province. In Scotland and Wales, many people have felt disenfranchised since the artificial regions or districts were created. There are rugby people in both countries who simply won't go to watch the newly-created teams but Irish rugby has never had that problem because of the historical nature of that provinces. The guaranteed support base would be a big attraction to investors and you can already see that by the shirt sponsors the Irish provinces have. The likes of Toyota, Bank of Scotland (Ireland) and Bank of Ireland are big companies and they don't thrown their money around for the sake of it. They're paying big money . . . bigger than the sponsorship deals in the Guinness Premiership . . . to be involved with the Irish provinces and that interest would only grow if the IRFU ever decided they were willing to bring private partners on board."

The IRFU's willingness, or rather unwillingness, is where the problem lies. Over the summer, the Scottish Rugby Union offloaded Edinburgh to a business consortium because they simply couldn't afford to support three districts as well as servicing a £23million debt. The Scots had no option but to seek outside investment, but the IRFU, currently in a reasonably healthy financial position, certainly do.

The accounts for the 2005/6 season revealed a profit (of 800,000) for the first time in a number of years, while the a fully-redeveloped Lansdowne Road should prove to be something of a cash cow for the Union over the coming decades. From such a stable financial position, IRFU chief executive Philip Browne positively baulks at the prospect of selling off any of the provinces, lock, stock and barrel, but he admits the IRFU would, at the very least, listen to any party who was looking for a percentage stake in the Irish rugby scene.

"We're open minded on the matter of private investment in any of the provinces but we would still want overall control, " says the IRFU's chief executive. "We need to have control of the players, above anything else, to ensure that our system works. The national team is the focal point of Irish rugby, not just in an emotional sense but also financially. Income from the international side funds the rest of the game, from underage and schools right up to professional level. If the national team is compromised because we don't have full control over our top players and how many games they play in a season, then the whole system is in trouble."

The IRFU's position makes complete sense when you consider the Union's primary commercial strategy, namely, the funding of each and every strand of Irish rugby by the income garnered from the national team. But if we play the role of devil's advocate for a moment and decide that Union's outlined strategy isn't the best way forward for Irish rugby, then private investment would offer a different pathway completely.

For one, the Magners League would be a new competition entirely. The country's top players would, on the behest of their new paymasters, be available for selection all season long, and not just when it's convenient for the international game. That in turn would have the supporters whirling through the turnstiles, and with 26 'real' games a season instead of six, the provincial game would be transformed. And that's only one potential difference. The commercial side of provincial rugby would take on a whole new dimension. At the moment, Munster are the biggest rugby brand in Europe and that's without any concerted marketing drive whatsoever. Imagine what they'd be capable of achieving off the field with a hungry sales team desperate to make money to justify their existence? Imagine, too, what Leinster, a team based in a city of 1.3 million people, would be capable of achieving if they really, and we mean really, wanted to tap into the market of traditional non-rugby people in their environs?

Those are the plus points but private ownership does have it's pitfalls. The constant battle between Premier Rugby, the umbrella group representing the Guinness Premiership clubs in England, and the RFU for control of the country's elite players would undoubtedly be repeated over here, while the fortunes of the national team could potentially, but not definitely, suffer if its needs were not put first.

Then there's the potential physical effects on the players, who'd be expected to play a lot more rugby. "Player welfare would be our organisation's biggest worry in such a situation, " admits Niall Woods, chief executive of the Irish Rugby Union Players' Association. "The players would undoubtedly be asked to play more games and while they'd be compensated handsomely for doing so in their pay packets, it would definitely have a detrimental affect on their health and well-being in the future. I also think we'd see a lot more foreign players in Ireland if private investors controlled the provinces. That would have a serious knock on effect on our own young players trying to climb up the rugby ladder."

All valid points but just because the current system works reasonably well, it doesn't mean that it's the only way forward. At least the IRFU claims to be open minded about partial-private ownership, which is a start. Now all we need is a Drumaville for rugby to test the the Union's stance.

Anybody got a few quid to spare?

ccronin@tribune. ie