RFU-bashing; women's edition

[Which Tyler]

So the RFU are receiving a lot of abuse currently with claims that they have "dismantled" women's rugby in England, and acted disgracefully in not renewing contracts.

http://www.punditarena.com/rugby/smcmah ... cup-women/

As far as I can tell, the time-frame is that 4 years ago the RFU offered full-time contracts for the 7s side, and had the only professional side at the Rio Olympics. Then they increased and concentrated on the XVs game, and will have the only professional side at the WRWC2017. In the next 2 year cycle we'll have a fully professional 7s side going up to the Tokyo Olympics - currently looking like being the only one.
The intention is clearly stated that XVs will then be fully professional again in the lead up to the WRWC 2021.

That reduction form XVs to 7s (from "about 50 players who are on a mixture of full-time and part-time professional contracts " to 17 full-time plus however many part-time) has netted the RFU a lot of bad publicity and Daily Heil type headlines; utterly ignoring the fact that bthe RFU will still be world-leader in financing women's rugby, and England will still be the only country with ANY full-time professional female players (AFAICT)

[fivepointer]

Maggie Alphonsi was on the radio earlier talking about this. i didnt realise the funding would be switched from XV to V11 in the way that it will. Pity that they cant keep both going as inevitably the XV a side game will lose momentum after the WC.
The RFU have supported womens rugby very well over the last few years. The game has come on enormously.

[Mellsblue]

Agreed. The RFU are actually at the fore front of pro-female rugby. You can argue whether or not this is being queen in the land of blind, but it's true. The issue seems to be being spun as a sudden spate of redundancies when, as far as I'm aware, it's a long term plan and one known to the players. Senior politicians and personalities coming out and using words such as 'slashing' obviously isn't helping but it's a sign of the times. I'd also imagine it's a loss making programme and one the RFU can only sustain so much without compromising other grassroots funding programmes.

[Digby]

The change in funding has been known about for a while, though having taken so long to come this far it's still a shame we're taking some backward steps, and it's really not that much in the grand scheme of things.

The possible saving grace is the pro league commencing soon, if that can sustain itself it'll hopefully do more than ringfencing some top players into a central scheme anyway.

[Which Tyler]

@fivepointer did Maggie, or the players themselves know that this was coming? Or was it a bolt from the blue when they heard in April?

@Digby good point on the Pro league, I'd forgotten about that. Can you remember how professional it's going to be?

[Digby]

@fivepointer did Maggie, or the players themselves know that this was coming? Or was it a bolt from the blue when they heard in April?

@Digby good point on the Pro league, I'd forgotten about that. Can you remember how professional it's going to be?

I think there's some funding for player support, coaching, physios... but whilst I'm not saying there isn't money for player contracts I don't thinking about it recall any details.

Catherine Spencer (or just Spence) was on 5-Live last night and from her comments I'd infer the players have known about this for a while, but didn't know it was coming. Though if you're on such a central contract there's always the chance even if more had been forthcoming that they wouldn't have gone to all the same players.

[Which Tyler]

Out of interest, does anyone know what the disparity between the female sports actually is?

From what I can gather, cricket turned professional in Feb 2014, and the England team earn £40k each [1]
Football earns £20k each from their clubs, plus a "top-up" if they play for England,[1] up to £50k; with this year's euro championship being the first fully professional ladies team out there [2]
As of Aug 2014 Rugby turned professional for the 7s game, and after Rio had "more than £1M" invested in 16 full-time, 16 part-time and 16 short-term contracts [3] if we take a hypothetical look at those contracts, then we'd need something along the lines of 16x£33k, 16x£22k and 16x£11k to get to £1.056M. this new reduction will leave us with 17 full-time and an unknown number of part-time and short-term contract; in addition to the £800k the RFU are putting the way of the new semi-predicted league [4], and contracts earned there

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/global/2015 ... nna-kessel
[2] https://www.theguardian.com/football/20 ... rk-sampson
[3] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/rugby-union/ ... ens-squad/
[4] http://www.punditarena.com/rugby/smcmah ... cup-women/

[Mush]

Of course this is a huge backwards step, whether it was planned or not. Just because England lead the rest of the World with their support for Woman's rugby doesn't mean we should not support it more. It sends out a poor message to the woman at the worst possible time, being just a couple of weeks before their World Cup. What a boost it would have been to tell the squad that their contracts were to be extended rather than curtailed! I appreciate the Woman's game may not be economically viable yet, but actions like this won't help to attract new players, or retain those that may be put out of work - whether or not they expected it to happen. At the very least, this is incompetent management and I'm shocked at the way it's being largely dismissed on a Rugby board.

[Mellsblue]

The RFU could also give every school a full time coach, every club a 4G pitch, support a full time wheelchair rugby team and properly fund the Championship, but money is finite. Where do you draw the line?
The RFU will argue that they only have so much money and the best way of spending that money is to prioritise the comps that get the most coverage for the women's game.

[Puja]

I'm with Mush. Given the amount of money that the RFU earns and spends, there's no way that this was an unavoidable cut where the cost just couldn't have been covered elsewhere. It's also not like England stop playing XVs during the 7s "cycle". It's also not like the front row and other non-7s players stop having bills and mortgages during the 7s. It's not like they're financing Halfpenny's dual contract here - this is a risible sum of money given the budgets that the RFU deals with.

Or, if they're not willing to do that, they should at least have hired a decent PR person to spin this so it wasn't "RFU cancels pro contracts weeks before the World Cup". I hear Alister Campbell's got experience in rugby and with dealing with grade A tw*ts.

Puja

[Puja]

The RFU could also give every school a full time coach, every club a 4G pitch, support a full time wheelchair rugby team and properly fund the Championship, but money is finite. Where do you draw the line?
The RFU will argue that they only have so much money and the best way of spending that money is to prioritise the comps that get the most coverage for the women's game.

Well, if they're looking to gather publicity around the women's game, then they've certainly succeeded this week!

I would argue that women's rugby gives us one of the highest bangs for our buck in terms of driving participation and getting more people (and thus money) into the sport. This feels like a massive own goal to me - they either shouldn't have done it or used some PR nous to make sure it was announced a) further away from the WRWC, b) when something else was going on in rugby, c) not just after the BBC funding row that's even got the Daily Heil championing gender equality (for the next 2 minutes), and d) in a positive fashion, rather than allowing headlines of "RFU slash contracts!"

Puja

[Mellsblue]

The RFU could also give every school a full time coach, every club a 4G pitch, support a full time wheelchair rugby team and properly fund the Championship, but money is finite. Where do you draw the line?
The RFU will argue that they only have so much money and the best way of spending that money is to prioritise the comps that get the most coverage for the women's game.

Well, if they're looking to gather publicity around the women's game, then they've certainly succeeded this week!

I would argue that women's rugby gives us one of the highest bangs for our buck in terms of driving participation and getting more people (and thus money) into the sport. This feels like a massive own goal to me - they either shouldn't have done it or used some PR nous to make sure it was announced a) further away from the WRWC, b) when something else was going on in rugby, c) not just after the BBC funding row that's even got the Daily Heil championing gender equality (for the next 2 minutes), and d) in a positive fashion, rather than allowing headlines of "RFU slash contracts!"

Puja

The moment the RFU starts making financial and strategic decisions on how the 24hr news cycle and social media react is the day I lose quite a bit of respect for them.
You can say this is a PR own goal but it'll blow over once the righteous attention seekers move on and the hacks find another non-story to hype up. If they continue winning the big comps this will just be another of yesterday's mountains over a mole hill.

[Puja]

The moment the RFU starts making financial and strategic decisions on how the 24hr news cycle and social media react is the day I lose quite a bit of respect for them.
You can say this is a PR own goal but it'll blow over once the righteous attention seekers move on and the hacks find another non-story to hype up. If they continue winning the big comps this will just be another of yesterday's mountains over a mole hill.

You say "24hr news cycle", I say "the only news story some people will get about rugby." Rugby's a minority sport and women's rugby doubly so - even if they win the WRWC, it will get less column inches and less people knowing about it than have read this news story. Fans will know that it's not as simple as it seems, but the casual viewer's takeaway is going to be that rugby in England is a sexist sport that disdains the women's game. Not exactly good advertising.

Puja

[Oakboy]

Yes, there is an element of developmental benevolence required but professional sport is a simple commercial case of supply and demand. If the women's game is commercially viable it will thrive. Otherwise, it won't. Sponsorship and TV are the key, not the RFU. Marketing is more important than subsidy.

[Timbo]

This is exactly what the RFU did last time post World Cup and in the build up to the olympics. You can question the strategy but the overall push behind the women's game seems pretty strong to me.

I feel for the women who've lost (dream) jobs, but without wanting to sound callous, that's professional sport for you. A contract ends and there are no guarantees. At least the vast majority of them have had proper careers in the past they can now fall back on.

Ultimately I think all this just adds further weight to the fact that it pays to be an outside back.

[Mellsblue]

The moment the RFU starts making financial and strategic decisions on how the 24hr news cycle and social media react is the day I lose quite a bit of respect for them.
You can say this is a PR own goal but it'll blow over once the righteous attention seekers move on and the hacks find another non-story to hype up. If they continue winning the big comps this will just be another of yesterday's mountains over a mole hill.

You say "24hr news cycle", I say "the only news story some people will get about rugby." Rugby's a minority sport and women's rugby doubly so - even if they win the WRWC, it will get less column inches and less people knowing about it than have read this news story. Fans will know that it's not as simple as it seems, but the casual viewer's takeaway is going to be that rugby in England is a sexist sport that disdains the women's game. Not exactly good advertising.

Puja

Not sure where you're getting your figures from but I'm assuming you're guessing so I'll have a guess too. Interactions from people viewing the World Cup matches and associated reports will exceed those from this story, in total. It will also reach far more people who are more likely to take up playing or supporting the game, ie those interested in sport, rather than professional moaners and attention seekers, eg MPs who don't know the first thing about the game. I'd also wager that a successful competition will be far more likely to inspire someone to continue interacting with the game than this story is likely to permanently put them off.

Both opinions are conjecture and I still don't see where you stop the gravy train without annoying some section of society.

[Digby]

There was an oddly large story about rugby in the Times today, certainly for the time of year, and it was all about the cut in funding to the Women's XV game.

[Puja]

Both opinions are conjecture and I still don't see where you stop the gravy train without annoying some section of society.

Oh, I think we can all agree that it should stop long before any money is given to the Championship. Anything else would be foolishness.

Puja

[Mellsblue]

Both opinions are conjecture and I still don't see where you stop the gravy train without annoying some section of society.

Oh, I think we can all agree that it should stop long before any money is given to the Championship. Anything else would be foolishness.

Puja

The status quo then

[Which Tyler]

Quick question, anyone can feel free to answer.
If YOU were the RFU, and you've decided to increase funding in the elite women's game from £1M to £1.5M where do you spend it?

Existing situation is that you are spending £1M on contracts for the top 48 players, with 16 on full-time contracts, 16 on part-time and 16 on short-term.


The RFU have decided to split that £1M pot to have £850k going to set up a new semi-predicted league structure in an attempt to grow the game (scoring an horrendous own-goal by excluding Litchfield), and the remaining £650k on 17, full-time professional contracts (and an undisclosed number of part-time or short-term contracts) for the 7s squad with an eye on the Commonwealth and Olympic games in the next 2 years.

If your answer to the question above (how would you split the £1.5M) is that you'd spend more money and do both, then what other projects would you sacrifice to achieve that? Bear in mind that it comes from a pot of about £35M for "rugby development" http://www.englandrugby.com/news/annual ... u-history/

[Puja]

First thing I'd do is make sure that every press release mentioned that I was putting more money into the women's game, not less, and have got ahead of the story before it ended up being this issue. However, it's a bit late for that now.

On your original question, cutting the non-7s contracts saves £350k per year by your figures. We could probably keep everyone on at least a part-time contract for £200k. The RFU's budget for rugby investment in 2017 is £102m, so we're talking less than 0.2% of the budget. If it were deemed important, the money could be found.

Puja

[Which Tyler]

TBH we don't know what the situation is for the ladies who've lost their full-time contracts; but I very much doubt that they're suddenly unemployed by the RFU. England will still be putting out a XVs team after all. We know that there are still part-time and short-term contracts there for the women's XV game, we just don't know how big the pot or how many players are in what category.

I absolutely agree that the PR is awful; I'm just more interested in getting deeper than that angle (partly because the RFU being bad at PR comes as a surprise to approximately nobody)
Oh, and you didn't answer the question above, you just said you'd find more money the 50% increase in investment should have been a 70% increase.

[Mellsblue]

If I were the RFU I'd but the extra money in to tighter shorts for the players but thats just a guess based on the demographics of those in charge of the RFU.

A fair amount of the players are/were employed by the RFU as community coaches etc so I'm not sure how many will suddenly become unemployed. Also, I'm led to believe, on top of this a few of the 'full time' players are given plenty of leniency to take on secondary employment elsewhere. Jobs such as PE teacher and personal trainer. It's not as if all those losing their contract are suddenly tossed in to the wild.

There has been plenty of press coverage about the success of the woman's game off the back of substantial financial investment but this won't be raised by politicians and journalists seeking headlines. I'm sure there will be an RFU response shortly. I believe though that it won't be until next week as they have drinks and lunch at The Hurlingham tomorrow and a long business weekend at Celtic Manor fri - mon. It takes a lot of discussion to decide exactly how small Scarret's shorts should be, don't you know.

[Digby]

There was an oddly large story about rugby in the Times today, certainly for the time of year, and it was all about the cut in funding to the Women's XV game.

Another rugby story in the Times today, this one though was much shorter. And said basically he RFU are looking to use the money to fund 7s and to help kickoff the WSR, and that whilst there isn't the player depth as things stand to warrant giving pro contracts in 7s and XVs they'll review in two years, which will also have given WSR a chance to expand the playing pool of top end England potentials.

[Mellsblue]

Not directly related to the topic but it's a decent read, touches on the idea that the success of the female national teams is very important and mentions the RFU's decision. Matthew Syed in today's Times:


In 2003, Linda Babcock, an academic at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, discovered an alarming truth. Male graduates from the university’s highly respected MBA programme were earning, on average, 7.6 per cent more than their female counterparts. The stats seemed to imply serious sexism in leading companies.

Yet closer inspection revealed that the problem was not the bigotry of employers but the different ways that graduates reacted to initial salary offers. Only 7 per cent of women tried to negotiate, leaving them stuck on the initial offer. The majority of men, on the other hand, bargained fiercely, increasing their initial offer by 7.4 per cent. This difference accounted for almost the entire pay gap.

But that’s not all. Further study demonstrated that those women who do choose to negotiate suffer a different kind of setback. They are seen as pushy for violating “gender norms”. They are regarded as battleaxes. They are considered as “unfeminine”, undermining long-term career prospects. Needless to say, men who negotiate suffer no such backlash. On the contrary, they are considered strong and resolute, improving their earning profiles.

These findings, and dozens like them, reveal that the problem in the workplace is not prejudice per se, but the recursive effects of stereotyping. Women who choose not to fight their corner are not pushovers in any fundamental sense, they are merely responding to the (perverse) incentives they face. They are trading a lower salary for the benefits — personal and professional — of being considered “feminine”. It is a classic Catch 22.

And this brings us to women’s sport, for you may have noticed that we are in the midst of a golden period. England defeated Scotland 6-0 and Spain 2-0 in thoroughly entertaining matches in the European Championships and face Portugal tomorrow night. Johanna Konta’s run to the semi-finals at SW19 was a standout storyline at Wimbledon, and her second-round epic against Donna Vekic one of the finest matches of the championships.


In cricket, England won the World Cup on Sunday, defeating India at Lord’s. Mike Atherton, The Times’s cricket correspondent, captured the drama: “It was a thrilling, almost unbelievable finish: down to the wire, with the lights on, the rain falling steadily, India visibly tightening under the pressure of a run chase of which they had for so long appeared in control, and the crowd gripped by it all, frenzied in their support for their respective team.”

It seems to me that these events, and others like them, have a significance that extends beyond sport. A generation of young girls (and boys) are being surrounded by new “gender norms”. Instead of the prim and docile archetypes beloved by advertising executives over recent decades (one commercial in 1974 had a woman lying at the feet of her husband, admiring his shoes, with the caption “keep her where she belongs”), they are watching high-profile women sweating and striving, leaping and sprinting, competing and contesting. Most importantly of all, they are seeing that none of this is “unfeminine”. On the contrary, this is femininity as liberated from the straitjacket of the past: determined, resourceful, beautiful.

As ideals about femininity shift and broaden, this will have knock-on effects on the workplace. As a dad, I warm to the thought of Evie, almost five, not having to temper her native ambition out of fear of social retribution. I thrill to the idea that she will be able to compete enthusiastically. This is not only about sport, although I can’t help remembering that my Auntie Beryl gave up the long jump, at which she excelled, because she was tittered at by class-mates. No, this is about the insinuation, embedded in our culture for centuries, that women are fragile and that it is therefore unseemly, perhaps even dangerous, for them to strive too hard.

Consider that from 1928 until 1960, women were barred at the Olympics from competing in distances longer than 200 metres. Until 1971, women could not play at many football grounds because it was considered “unsuitable” by the FA in 1921. In cricket, women did not play at Lord’s until 1976, instead focusing on the gentler activity of making tea (they were not allowed to be members of MCC until 1998). And, yes, women today play over three sets in grand-slam tennis because of the lingering idea that they are not robust enough to cope with the classic five.

The likes of Konta are not just fabulous athletes, but social catalysts
The likes of Konta are not just fabulous athletes, but social catalysts

The tragedy is that feminists have often made the problem worse by calling for symbolic changes which, far from undermining tired assumptions, reinforce them. A classic example is quotas in the boardroom. Forcing companies to appoint women to senior positions merely strengthens the prejudice that women are not strong enough to get there on merit. It bolsters the stereotype that they need an artificial hand-up. This has undermined the prospects of women, just as racial quotas, in South Africa and the United States, have undermined black people and those of ethnic minorities.

Women’s sport has a very different meaning, not just by giving girls a greater opportunity to play games that enrich their lives, but by subverting the assumptions that hold them back. How wonderful to watch Victoria Pendleton ride to glory at the velodrome, Rebecca Adlington swim her heart out in the pool or, to take the game against Spain on Sunday, Fran Kirby score with a blistering strike. How fabulous to watch Serena Williams win 23 grand-slam singles titles, facing down criticism all along the way, the most recent while eight weeks pregnant.

The women’s cricket World Cup final secured a record 1.1 million audience on Sky Sports, larger than an average Premier League game. At Lord’s, 27,000 watched live, including many young girls and women. Elizabeth Ammon wrote in The Times: “There was the sight of the queues for the ladies’ toilets longer than the men’s.” This from someone who, as a girl, never even imagined playing cricket: “When I was growing up, men played and women . . . did the scoring. It never occurred to me that women may actually play the game.”

But there is a long way to go. Only yesterday, it was revealed that the RFU has decided not to renew contracts for England women’s XVs players after they defend the World Cup next month. The mainstream coverage devoted to women’s sport remains relatively sparse. And evidence continues to suggest that strong, determined women still face a backlash in the workplace, not just from men, but from women too. This reveals just how hard it can be to budge stereotypes.

And it is why the likes of Konta and Kirby are not just fabulous athletes, but social catalysts. We have had great sportswomen in the past but not in such numbers or with such a rapidly rising profile. They are demonstrating that it is possible to be tough as well as compassionate, steely and empathetic. Most importantly of all, they are showing that you can be as ambitious as any man, but every inch a woman. As Pendleton told me weeks before conquering the velodrome at London 2012: “I spend every day trying to find a fraction of a second advantage over my rivals. And, you know what? I just love doing it.”