Cut to Championship Funding

[fivepointer]

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2020/ ... sh-funding

"The Rugby Football Union is to cut its funding of the Championship by 50%, throwing England’s second tier into turmoil and handing “ring-fencing to the Premiership on a plate”.

It is understood the RFU’s swingeing cuts of more than £3m will come into force next season, leaving a number of Championship clubs in a state of shock and uncertain of their futures. One club owner described the move as “showing contempt” for the Championship, suggesting the league could be reduced to amateur status in “two or three years”.

The move has been described as Premiership ring-fencing “by default”, with Saracens set to be relegated into a league beset by financial strife next season. “The RFU has handed ring-fencing to the Premiership on a plate and they’ve paid nothing for it,” added a Championship source. “They’ve just given it away.”

The 12 clubs were informed of the measures at a committee meeting on Tuesday. They receive around £550,000 in funding but halving that at such short notice will be “catastrophic”, according to one source, with another suggesting it could leave 200 players without clubs"

[Oakboy]

I've never understood how the RFU managed to get themselves into financial difficulties. 5 - 10 years ago there was money in abundance. Maybe the blazers never fully appreciated the effects of professionalism. The titles 'Premiership' and 'Championship' are indicative of separation.

Failing to fully support the nurseries for the top tier has to be short-sighted but I think the professional/amateur relationship is bound to suffer when big money rules.

[fivepointer]

RFU statement https://www.championshiprugby.co.uk/new ... ampionship

"The gateway is still open for clubs to get into the Premiership if they have the necessary financial resources and meet the minimum standards required"

Thats always been the case but plainly is getting a great deal harder. What the funding cut will do is force those clubs just making do in the Championship to cut squads, go part time or even revert to amateur status.

Is this what the game needs?

[Peej]

It's massively self-limiting for the English game

[Tigersman]

Rugby can't afford 12 clubs let alone 24.
Without Exeter would people be so rosey eye about the league?


Although it is stupid how the stadium developments went £10 million over budget and that championship is one of the things they decide to cut.
I wonder how much the RFU board pay themselves?

[Which Tyler]

Oh FFS

They should have been given the Saracens fine (s) rather than the PRL clubs,

Maybe Allianz can be convinced to switch their support from Saracens to the Championship?

[Tigersman]

My guess is this will happen.
Premiership clubs and championship clubs will agree to a ring fenced deal prob timed, and by the 2021/22 season it will come into place.

[Which Tyler]

My guess is this will happen.
Premiership clubs and championship clubs will agree to a ring fenced deal prob timed, and by the 2021/22 season it will come into place.

Looks much more likely following this announcement.
It will also signal the end of my interest in English domestic rugby - I'll have to pick a French team to support (easy, wife's family are about an hour away from Clermont - easily her most local)

[Tigersman]

My guess is this will happen.
Premiership clubs and championship clubs will agree to a ring fenced deal prob timed, and by the 2021/22 season it will come into place.

Looks much more likely following this announcement.
It will also signal the end of my interest in English domestic rugby - I'll have to pick a French team to support (easy, wife's family are about an hour away from Clermont - easily her most local)

Sounds very house of cards, and 100% me just spit balling but wonder if it was a back handed deal between RFU and PRL.

[Oakboy]

As ever, the whole scene might be viewed differently if we started with a blank sheet of paper. 6 regions,10 clubs, central contracts, Lions tours, premiership games during international windows??? Amateur traditions and professional development mix like oil and water.

[fivepointer]

This looks set to run....and run.....

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2020/ ... way-league

There has to be a better way to work out how the top levels in the English game are organised.

[fivepointer]

Mark Evans (former Quins CEO) has some sensible things to say on twitter -
The “value”of any third tier in any rugby country is not commercial (rugby markets are too small for that)The value is as a competitive development platform for players,referees & coaches.Can’t have annual promotion but has to be funded by revenues of 1st(Int)& 2nd (Prem)tiers.
All those bemoaning the cuts to funding for Championship have to realise the price for decent funding to the third tier is a closed league. Look around the rugby world- you cant have one without the other & wishing won’t make it so. Today was inevitable if you held out for both.
I despair that as a sport we keep tinkering when what’s needed is a package of interrelated changes which reinforce each other eg.a closed Prem & Div 1,max squad size in Prem, abolition of Prem Cup & Shield & A League, fewer games,lower salary cap, subsidised Div 1, feeder teams.

[Oakboy]

Mark Evans (former Quins CEO) has some sensible things to say on twitter -
The “value”of any third tier in any rugby country is not commercial (rugby markets are too small for that)The value is as a competitive development platform for players,referees & coaches.Can’t have annual promotion but has to be funded by revenues of 1st(Int)& 2nd (Prem)tiers.
All those bemoaning the cuts to funding for Championship have to realise the price for decent funding to the third tier is a closed league. Look around the rugby world- you cant have one without the other & wishing won’t make it so. Today was inevitable if you held out for both.
I despair that as a sport we keep tinkering when what’s needed is a package of interrelated changes which reinforce each other eg.a closed Prem & Div 1,max squad size in Prem, abolition of Prem Cup & Shield & A League, fewer games,lower salary cap, subsidised Div 1, feeder teams.

He can't be taken seriously, surely, talking such sense?

[Banquo]

You can trace this back to Dudley Wood refusing to move when the starting pistol was fired.

[Stom]

Well it all goes back to his old adage...

If in doubt, sign a Samoan

[Which Tyler]

Well it all goes back to his old adage...

If in doubt, sign a Samoan

Kolpak won't apply after December 2020

[Mellsblue]

For all you Twatterati, the #iplayedchampionshiprugby is worth a look.

[Mellsblue]

Blueprint for the future of the Champ, drawn up by Pirates, Coventry, Ealing and Scottish:
https://cornish-pirates.com/wp-content/ ... -02-20.pdf

[Tigersman]

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/rugby-union ... mpionship/

Different take.

[Puja]

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/rugby-union ... mpionship/

Different take.

He's not wrong, although I'd argue that he's defending a fundamental and well-planned reorganisation of the Championship, whereas the RFU appears to have just slashed the funding and sauntered away.

Blueprint for the future of the Champ, drawn up by Pirates, Coventry, Ealing and Scottish:
https://cornish-pirates.com/wp-content/ ... -02-20.pdf

Is it just me, or is that blueprint just, "We should have a cup" combined with, "I'm sure we could get more spectators if we tried." Seems light on actual solutions and plans.

Puja

[Oakboy]

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/rugby-union ... mpionship/

Different take.

Do you know to what extent the businessmen's pet project bit is prevalent in lower leagues? Moore's suggestion that players are being paid when they are way off real professional standard has to be an issue if it's true. It twists the basic competitiveness presumably. I've seen similar morale-destroying action in squash leagues in the past with players walking away because of unfair competition. The classic beef was player A having to pay a match fee while player B was paid to turn up.

[fivepointer]

Cannot access all of Moore's article online as its behind a paywall but this struck me as being highly pertinent "Criticising without offering workable alternatives or solutions is easy and, remember this: every part of the game is asking for money and every pound spent somewhere is a pound that cannot be spent elsewhere.

The fact is that English rugby needs a radical reorganisation and, if you disagree, at least be honest and tell us how your alternative vision is going to work"

I dont see the Champ clubs blueprint as being a particularly strong document which points to a sustainable way forward.
Truth is we need a thorough overhaul of the elite game in England. A good starting point would be recognition of the commercial realities, along with the realisation that there isnt the depth and quality here to staff 24 pro teams.

[Tigersman]

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/rugby-union ... mpionship/

Different take.

Do you know to what extent the businessmen's pet project bit is prevalent in lower leagues? Moore's suggestion that players are being paid when they are way off real professional standard has to be an issue if it's true. It twists the basic competitiveness presumably. I've seen similar morale-destroying action in squash leagues in the past with players walking away because of unfair competition. The classic beef was player A having to pay a match fee while player B was paid to turn up.

I know a couple of teams in my area that had business owners and ended up having issues.
South Leicester had/have a similar problem.
Investors brought more players to come in, local lads left. Investors pull out, the paid players leave end up with
https://www.pitchero.com/clubs/southlei ... 91285.html

[Mellsblue]

Blueprint for the future of the Champ, drawn up by Pirates, Coventry, Ealing and Scottish:
https://cornish-pirates.com/wp-content/ ... -02-20.pdf

Is it just me, or is that blueprint just, "We should have a cup" combined with, "I'm sure we could get more spectators if we tried." Seems light on actual solutions and plans.

Puja

Can’t say I’ve found time to read it. The four clubs involved are some of the more dynamic, forward thinking organisations in the leagues so I was hoping it would have some good ideas in there.

[Oakboy]

Full article:


Those paid to think and write about rugby ought to try doing both before sounding off about the latest topic they find to use as clickbait.
Referring to large clubs in days gone by and refusing to face commercial reality adds nothing to the collective wisdom. Criticising without offering workable alternatives or solutions is easy and, remember this: every part of the game is asking for money and every pound spent somewhere is a pound that cannot be spent elsewhere.
The fact is that English rugby needs a radical reorganisation and, if you disagree, at least be honest and tell us how your alternative vision is going to work.
We should start with the Rugby Football Union review into payments allowed at all levels of the game, that became a fudge and failed to grasp the essential point that we are allowing payments to players who do not deserve them and thus taking money out of a sport that cannot afford it.
I sat on that ad hoc committee and registered my profound disagreement with its recommendation that payments should be allowed at any level, subject to controls.
What is needed is a complete ban on any payment below the Championship, because clubs are having to find sums of anywhere between £30,000 and £120,000 a year before they address any other expenditure. And for what? For players who could not get anywhere near a professional contract because they are not good enough.
All this money should be spent expanding mini, junior and women’s sections within lower-league clubs. Not only would this make them better and bigger community clubs, it would increase the chances of producing that small percentage of players with the talent to go on to play professional and international rugby. It would also restore what lower-league rugby is meant to be about – fun; competitive, but fun, friendship and lifelong memories.
We are allowing a series of local businessmen to distort the lower leagues for their own vanity. Their investment is often made solely to steal players developed by other clubs and advance up leagues until they decide to end their largesse, leaving the club to plummet and sometimes to go under.
How is this a good thing? Talk all you like about frictionless promotion and relegation, with payments unregulated, but tell us how you intend this to work and what you will do with the clubs that will, absolutely will, be casualties.
The reality of the Championship is that it is an uneasy combination of semi-professional, full professional and barely professional clubs. They are not all in a position to survive without subsidy, never mind challenge for promotion to the Premiership.
The average attendance, at something around 1,500, is below that of football’s Vanarama National League, but in some cases its payments to players are higher. How is this sensible? Like it or not, there is no value in a broadcast contract for the Championship unless it is rolled up with the Premiership, and even then some broadcasters will say that the cost of televising it makes the overall broadcast deal more unattractive.
Each year all its clubs face a one-season battle to be promoted which, according to some estimates, requires them to spend something near £7 million. As only one club can be promoted, this means a waste of money every year for clubs genuinely trying to gain promotion.
What is interesting about the Championship is that a large proportion of its clubs know they cannot gain promotion and do not want it. If they accepted that automatic promotion should be every three years, they would be in a position to make realistic investment in players and infrastructure over a proper period of time. This would also allow the clubs who have no interest in promotion to run more efficiently. At present, the one-off dash for success wastes money and the value in the RFU supporting this myopia is limited.
A better organised Championship, with an enforced amateur game below it, would allow players who genuinely deserve payment, whether full-time or part-time, to be distilled into one more competitive league, which would have a greater concentration of England-qualified players.
If this was done there would be a decent incentive for the RFU to invest more money in the Championship. Presently, the case is limited to saying it provides somewhere to play for a small number of players who go on to have Premiership careers.
What English rugby must face is the fact that, while it is one of the richest unions in the world, it also has one of the largest infrastructures to fund.
There are other parts of the English game that have better claims for funding.