Wheeler-dealing is the name of the game

Published 10th Sep 2007

Rugby and property go together like forwards and backs. As the World Cup kicks off in France, Rupert Bates examines the links

Time was when the only flights to France that global property dealmakers used to worry about were those to Nice. The traditional Gallic get-together for agents, surveyors and investors is MIPIM in Cannes, which has been called the world's biggest real estate event - or party (the acronym should really be HNJB, the "huge networking junket on the beach").

Over the next few weeks, however, the wheeler-dealers will be flying into all corners of France from Paris to Bordeaux, Toulouse to Lyon, for the Rugby World Cup, a tournament that some say could just as well be labelled the world's second biggest real estate event.

Much gossip will be exchanged and drink taken, as real estate becomes surreal state. Indeed, there will be times when you could be forgiven for thinking that the World Cup is being run by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors or the National Association of Estate Agents, rather than the International Rugby Board.

But it is not just among the spectators that property types proliferate. It is also among the players. The links between rugby and property go back a long way. Over the years, that relationship has been cemented on the Land Economy course at Cambridge University.

In the 1980s, Cambridge Land Economy graduates and celebrated internationals included England's Rob Andrew and Scotland's Gavin Hastings. Oxford folk were convinced their rivals' interview process consisted of throwing a rugby ball at the candidate. Catch it and you were in. Spin-pass it straight back to the don and you were exempted from essays on urban planning, rural management and property finance, and, instead measured for your Twickenham Varsity blazer.

"The practice died out for a number of years thanks entirely, legend has it, to the one-time England back-rower Chris Sheasby, whose staggering lack of commitment to his studies led to a revision of the selection process," joked Will Greenwood, England's World Cup winning centre in his autobiography, Will. "That, anyway, is my excuse for being the only member of the Greenwood family not to get into Cambridge."

Ask a top rugby player about life after sport and many mention property, either dabbling with buy-to-lets, renovating and selling, or becoming a fully fledged developer. (Contrast this with footballers, who traditionally used to look for pubs to run when they hung up their boots - although former Liverpool and England striker Robbie Fowler has built up such an impressive property portfolio that fans used to chant, to the tune of the Beatles' Yellow Submarine, "We all live in a Robbie Fowler house.")

Many rugby stars go into commercial property but there are plenty in residential, too, both at home and abroad. New Zealand rugby fans, who worship Zinzan Brooke, one of the greatest-ever All Blacks, assume their hero now sits in the sporting pantheon, being fed nectar and peeled grapes. In reality, he is probably working on a building site in Windsor, Watford or Weybridge.

"I am a plumber and gas fitter by trade," says Brooke, who lives in Windsor and runs Valentines Homes. "I was involved in construction projects and buy-to-lets in New Zealand. It is amazing this rugby and property link. My brother Robin (another former All Black) was a site foreman and other members of my family are in the building trade."

Brooke came to England to play and coach at Harlequins, before success in the UK property game encouraged him to stay here. "We build a mix of apartments and houses and I am hoping eventually to build Valentines Homes into a £50 million company," says Brooke, whose properties sell for anything between £175,000 and £1million.

Dan Luger, a former Harlequin and a member of England's World Cup-winning squad, has a property project in Notting Hill, London, but, despite retaining an interest in Battersea estate agency Eden Harper, most of the flying wing's work is now abroad.

With every new country, especially in eastern Europe, sold as the "next big thing" even if the agent plugging the virgin territory has not yet found it on the map, Luger has a distinct advantage. He has built houses in the Czech Republic's capital, Prague, and villas and apartments on the Dalmatian coast in Croatia (his mother is Czech and his father Croatian).

"Local knowledge of emerging markets and connections is absolutely vital," he says. "You have to know what is going on culturally, politically and commercially to avoid the buying horror stories we hear too often." Luger's globetrotting does not stop there. He is playing rugby for Toulon in France and looking at development opportunities on the Côte d'Azur.

He expects to bump into both rugby and property contacts in the next few weeks and will be networking with the pace and panache that saw him score 24 tries in 38 England appearances. Even if England fail to retain their rugby crown, the property team will seal a deal or two off the field and put the World Cup down to experience - and, no doubt, expenses.

• Rupert Bates is editorial director of Homes Overseas magazine.

Source: ' Telegraph '

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