RFU responds to claim it has a 'grudge' against Championship clubs
RFU CEO Bill Sweeney has dismissed claims that it holds a grudge against Championship clubs in England following trenchant criticisms of funding cuts in recent years. Funding had doubled in 2016, going up to a total of around £7million that was worth about £534,000 to each club, but that figure was halved following the arrival of Sweeney as English rugby HQ boss in 2019.
It has been further reduced with clubs reportedly receiving approximately £80,000 each in 2020/21, funding propped up by a £140,000 per club contribution from the PRL. This reduced finance has left the RFU and its boss open to stinging allegations that it doesn’t care about second-tier rugby in England, but Sweeney has now insisted this isn’t the case.
Following an in-depth review of the Championship set-up, the RFU council is set to hear initial recommendations in January and these apparently include conference structures, more regionality, more National One clubs, Premiership second teams, English player ratios, and age restrictions (80 per cent U23s).
Sweeney has outlined that everything is up for discussion and was adamant that the Premiership hasn’t been ring-fenced by the decision last summer to place a moratorium on relegation from the top flight until the end of the 2023/24 season when the bottom-placed team will have to play off with the top side in that year’s Championship rather than get automatically demoted.
Speaking in an in-depth interview in the latest edition of the Rugby Journal magazine, Sweeney said ahead of next month’s RFU council meeting: “If you do some of these (options) how do you prepare a club that wants to go up to the Premiership? All of that is what is in the review. You have got to look at it in the context of what is best for the game. We don’t have a grudge against or have any ill-feeling towards Championship clubs. They are great clubs.
“There are some special clubs in Yorkshire but Leeds needs a rugby club… I am not going to say here ‘Oh, we are a Premiership club’. That would be delusional.@heagneyl ??? talks to Jon Callard about the rebirth of former Premiership side @LeedsTykeshttps://t.co/KtE3qKT7kN
— RugbyPass (@RugbyPass) December 19, 2021
“We often get accused of ring-fencing. We are not trying to ring-fence the Premiership and the Premiership is not trying to ring-fence itself either. They want a very competitive and more nationwide league as well. Now what you want to do is encourage more Exeters and you want to discourage the London Welsh stories where a club says, ‘I’ve got to get into the Premiership and get in there at all costs’.
“They end up paying players more than they can afford, they don’t have the spectator base and they end up plummeting all the way down through the leagues and they have to rebuild themselves back up again.”
Sweeney revealed that when he came to power at the RFU in 2019, he went to the Championship funding increase documents from 2016 and it was decided that the goals set at that time weren’t being met and cuts needed to happen.
“We doubled the funding and it went up to £7million. There were five specific reasons why this was done with five specific goals laid out for them and when you looked at them all, they hadn’t been achieved despite the increase in funding.
“Perhaps, more importantly, there was a sense that, ‘Well actually, it’s not the funding that is going to address those issues. It’s something more systematic than that’. One of the aims was to reduce the gap between the Premiership and the Championship but over the last 17 years, 14 of those seasons have seen the team that has been relegated in the Premiership bounce immediately back up.
“The gap in funding between a Premiership and a Championship club is so significant that the RFU can’t bridge that. We would have to spend probably a minimum of £4m per club, so we would need what, £50m? We have got 1,900 clubs in the country so we can’t afford that. It was difficult, though. People are passionate about their clubs and people don’t like resources being taken away.
“The crowds haven’t grown, the average is around 1,200 and that is probably inflated by a couple, the salaries are low and it is a difficult sell to television. Even the Premiership had its challenges when it came to renewing with BT, so people aren’t lining up (to televise the Championship) and it’s difficult to get centralised sponsorship. If you take away external funding at the moment, it’s difficult for the Championship to sustain itself as a full-time model.”
Sweeney added that suggestions the RFU should simply copy how the French rugby federation supports its Pro D2 second-tier league don’t stack up. “A lot of people will say, ‘Just copy the French model’. But the French model is very different for a number of reasons,” he explained.
Flicking through issue 1??6??
Featuring @dannycare, @poppy_g_c & @BryonyCleall, @RFCMerthyr (incl. Chief), Old Elthamians, Zintle Mpupha, @MalakaiFekitoa, @IvybridgeRFC (& @Georgiegulliver + @bengully), Ayaz Bhuta, Bill Sweeney, Spanish rugby, and 14-pages on Bristol Bears Rugby. pic.twitter.com/et29kG1bdG
— Rugby Journal (@JournalRugby) December 19, 2021
“France is a bit more of a socialist country so when they set up Pro D2, it was mandated by the government that one-third of the LNR broadcasting money had to flow down. So the new broadcast deal with LNR is about £100m a year whereas the Premiership broadcast deal is £35m, so Pro D2 is getting immediately 30 per cent of that £100m – almost the equivalent of the Premiership.
“Then you have some of these clubs in the rural parts of France and they are very much the hub of that city and the municipality gives you the stadium for free, so they don’t have to pay any of the utilities or anything. All you have to do is put the players on the pitch and pay them and a lot of it tends to be linked into jobs as well, and the average spectator base in France for Pro D2 is 5,000 people.
“You have also got to remember rugby is pretty much the national sport in France. It’s cultural as much as anything else. If we could just replicate that system we would love to, but it is just not possible to do that.”
Comments on RugbyPass
Beautiful shot from Finau, end of story. Gutted for Shaun Stevenson though.
4 Go to commentsThe Chiefs definitely didn’t win ugly. They had the superior scrum, a dominant lineout, and their defence was excellent once the Waratahs scored their two tries (thanks to some lucky refereeing calls mind you). They put pressure on the Waratahs lineout throughout the game, and the mind boggles as to why the referee did not award a yellow card or a penalty try against the Waratahs for repeated scrum infringements on their own try line before Narawa’s first try. And the Chiefs were slick with their passing and running angles on attack. It was a dominant performance all round, even with many questionable refereeing decisions.
1 Go to commentsWasnt late. Ref 2 assistants andTMO all saw it so who are you to say it was?
4 Go to commentsAre the Brumbies playing the Blues twice in a row?
4 Go to commentsBig difference from the Saders. Forwards really muscled up and laid a solid platform. Scooter brought some steel and I liked the loosie combination. Newell has been rather disappointing this season but stepped up big time - happy also to see Franks dot down. He should do that more often! Reihana had a good game and there seems to be more flair and invention with him in the saddle. McNicoll plays well from the back and is reliable plus inventive when he joins the line. Keep it up chaps!
3 Go to comments🤦♂️🤣 who cares who’s the best . All I know is the All Blacks have the star coach but have few star players now …
30 Go to commentsJe suis sûr que Farrell est impatient de jouer avec Lopez et Machenaud et d’être entraîné par Collazo… 🤭
1 Go to commentsAn on field red (aka a full red) in SRP must surely carry a bigger suspension than a red card given by the bunker as that carries a 20 minute team punishment. Had Damon Murphy abdicated his responsibility as a ref and issued both Drua players a yellow, which would have been upgraded to a 20 minute red by the bunker, that would have killed Australia and New Zealand’s push for the 20 minute red to be trialled globally from July this year.
11 Go to commentsEver so often you all post a Danny Care story that isn’t the announcement that he has finally re-signed for one more, victory tour season at Quins and I’m just like, “well you fooled me again!” My absolute favorite player ever, we need to make his final year at the Stoop (and Twickers) official already. I know he supposedly snubbed France but I won’t feel better until he signs.
1 Go to commentslate hit what late hit it wasn’t at all late and can clearly see he was committed before the tackle
4 Go to commentsChristian Lio -Willies 2 try perfomance was a standout. As was captain Scott Barrett. Up front was where the boys won it.They are a great team and players. Fantastic Crusaders , you can keep going.
3 Go to commentsI don't know how the locals feel about that? I guess if you call yourselves the Worcester Wasps that might be appease. But really we need more teams in the Premiership in my view so they are not padding it out as they are at the moment. It might curtail so many players going abroad as well
5 Go to commentsNZ 😭😭😭is certainly rivaling England for best whingers cup!😭😭😭 !!!
30 Go to commentsYup. New Zealand won 3 out of 10 world cups played. SA 4 out of 8 attempts 30 Vs 50 per cent.🤔🤔
30 Go to commentsShould've done this years ago. Change Saturday kick off times to around 11am. Up and off and back home before 3pm, limit travel time too. Allows players to actually do something else with their Saturday that's family oriented or being rugby fans they could ‘watch’ pro rugby. Increases crowds etc. How can anyone that enjoys grassroots and pro rugby have to choose between the two on Saturdays?
9 Go to commentsI bet he inspired those supporters just as much.
1 Go to commentsBen Smith Springboks living rent free in his head 😊😂
67 Go to commentsGood to hear he would like to play the game at the highest level, I hadn’t been to sure how much of a motivator that was before now. Sadly he’s probably chosen the rugby club to go to. Try not to worry about all the input about how you should play rugby Joey and just try to emulate what you do on the league field and have fun. You’ll limit your game too much (well not really because he’s a standard athlete like SBW and he’ll still have enough) if you’re trying to make sure you can recycle the ball back etc. On the other hard, you can totally just try and recycle by looking to offload any and everywhere if you’re going to ground 😋
1 Go to commentsThis just proves that theres always a stat and a metric to use to justify your abilities and your success. Ben did it last week by creating an imaginary competition and now you did the same to counter his argument and espouse a new yardstick for success. Why not just use the current one and lets say the Boks have won 4 world cups making them the most successful world cup team. Outside of the world cup the All Blacks are the most successful team winning countless rugby championships and dominating the rankings with high win percentages. Over the last 4 years statistically the Irish are the best having the highest win rate and also having positive records against every tier 1 side. The most successful Northern team in the game has been England with a world cup title and the most six nations titles in history. The AB’s are the most dominant team in history with the highest win rate and 3 world cups. Lets not try to reinvent the wheel. Just be honest about the actual stats and what each team has been good at doing and that will be enough to define their level of success.
30 Go to commentsHow is 7’s played there? I’m surprised 10 or 11 man rugby hasn’t taken off. 7 just doesn’t fit the 15s dynamics (rules n field etc) but these other versions do.
9 Go to comments