by Almost everyone in English club rugby has agreed on one thing. It can’t go on like this. The system, if that is the right word for the teetering pile of Jenga bricks supporting a cash-strapped 10-team Premier Division, is broken and an eight-year scheduled agreement between the Rugby Football Union and the club owners is to say as much. -need a long-term response.
Which is fine – except for one basic detail. It does little, as things stand, for anyone else. Talk to people in the second-tier Championship and there is more or less equal parts frustration, challenge and humor after years of reduced funding and central support. As Mark Lavery, director of rugby for second-placed Ampthill, said: “We’ve taken all the money out of the foundations, put it in the roof and now we’re wondering why the foundations are shaking. “
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Not far away in Bedford, the nation’s longest-serving director of rugby, Mike Rayer, also feels there is a lack of respect in some quarters for the work that Championship clubs – and the national leagues below – do to develop young players, coaches nurture , referees and communities across the country. “No one has really grabbed the Championship since Covid,” says Rayer. “He’s left in the corner to fight for himself. There are some very good things going on and some very good players in the Championship.”
As with local newspapers and county cricket, however, heritage and goodwill are no longer the safe havens they once were. Money is unlimited and there are multiple mouths to feed. In the eyes of many including Lavery, the boss of a leading car retail group, the sport requires a whole game solution rather than one for a few defenders. “The RFU seems to have a fundamentally different view of the world based on closed shop at the highest level. As for everything else about that, there doesn’t seem to be a plan. And yet we want to increase the amount of money paid to PRL? Talk me through that one. It is the economy of the old castle.”
This is all about the heart of England rugby going forward. Rather than setting up a bunch of debt-laden Premiership clubs, isn’t the RFU – check notes – supposed to be a members’ organization responsible for maintaining the game at all levels? On Tuesday there were more talks but so far there is no central funding for transformation to come.
In a statement last week the Championship has already formally rejected the idea of a “Premiership 2” franchise series, which it believes would not be meritocratic and would essentially reduce it to “farm” club status. It means that the uncertainty comes forward. “Premiership 2 shows an umbilical cord that doesn’t exist because they have done a private transaction that we are not involved in,” said Simon Halliday, chairman of the Championship committee. “Many times we have been told ‘we have no money’. Let’s repeat that. They don’t want to allocate it to us.”
All this is in stark contrast to France where ProD2, the league below the top 14, goes from strength to strength. Municipal stadiums and a more lucrative TV market obviously help, but the difference is still small. In England, even the top Premier League clubs are trying to renegotiate their Covid loans and the collapse of last year’s Championship winners Jersey has further highlighted the precarious nature of rugby’s financial landscape.
So what does the future look like? Part of the problem is that there are more different visions than a busy branch of Specsavers. Some clubs are ambitious, others are largely in survival mode. Ampthill are second in the league behind Ealing Trailfinders but without promotion or relegation, or a home ground that meets the minimum standard criteria, what else is there to focus on? “We started 18 years ago and said we’d go into the Championship,” says Lavery. “At that point we were at level 7. We got five promotions in 12 years but now we’ve hit a glass ceiling.”
Their core funding has also dropped significantly, from £680,000 in their first season down to £90,000 once medical costs are settled. Ampthill is linked with Saracens and a number of England players have worn the club’s jersey – Ben Earl, Alex Mitchell, Theo Dan and Freddie Steward. What they really want, though, is the chance to be the best club Ampthill can be. “It wasn’t that long ago that Saracens were playing on a ground in north London,” says Lavery. “I know because I went down there and watched them.”
A healthy player pathway, with a set number of English-qualified academy players getting more game time, must be a key ingredient. In Bedford it didn’t escape Rayer’s attention that former Blues full-back Rich Lane scored three tries for Bristol against Exeter this month. “There are still ambitious players in and around the Championship who could master it in the Premiership,” said Rayer, who won 21 caps for Wales and has been in charge at Goldington Road for 18 years. “We are also accessible. Players can rub shoulders with the supporters … you see the real human side of the game. That’s the beauty for us. But it cannot be a fully developed league. We all had to learn the game by playing with good experienced players. You can’t lose sight of that.”
On top of that, Championship teams are used to being resourceful. “We’re running a sustainable business … unlike the Premier League we’re not losing millions of pounds,” says Rayer, who is also adamant that promotion and relegation remain vital for England’s senior team. “We have to fight for promotion and relegation. International rugby at the end of the day is all about the result. How do you prepare for that if you miss 12 or 15 games a year and it doesn’t matter?”
Lavery agrees. “When you think about the decline in attendance, the decline in participation and the risks involved in playing the sport, it seems like we’re in for something that makes the sport less entertaining because it’s not no danger.” Halliday, however, does not envisage a rethink. “The game, whether it likes it or not, needs to understand that the barriers to entry are not coming down anytime soon. The only way to close that gap is to help fill it from the bottom up.”
Many still feel there were some good ideas in the rejected Championship blueprint drawn up by Edward Griffiths more than three years ago but Halliday believes a viable structure can eventually emerge. “It’s going to take longer because of the hand we’ve been dealt. You can’t undo the past but you can learn from it. We all want to find a solution. We want to be the best way possible for the young players of tomorrow. We have to commercialize who we are, which we haven’t done in years. And we need to improve our standards.
“I share the RFU’s vision that we cannot continue in the same way. It is a huge challenge given the years of underinvestment in this group of clubs. You reap what you sow … I think we will suffer for years to come because of some of the decisions that have been made. But I don’t run the RFU. All I want to do is make sure our clubs are able to manage their own destiny. Their value should be recognized and I want that respect. Don’t let anyone turn around and say our clubs aren’t ambitious. They’re ambitious as hell.”
