Championship is sinking: RFU won't rescue it!

THIS week it emerged that the RFU’s vision for the Championship has plumbed the depths. It was encapsulated by an email exchange between a prolific campaigner against ringfencing, and an RFU Council member.

- Nick Cain

The Council member responded to the campaigner raising serious points, “I’m inclined to vote for ringfencing if only to piss you off”. The member in question will be voting on the three or four-year promotion-relegation suspension which the RFU Board is recommending at a Council meeting later this month.

It would be disingenuous to suggest that this schoolyard jibe on such a crucial issue reflects on the entire 65-strong Council, but it provides a window into the growing divisions and antagonism over the direction the RFU is taking on promotion-relegation.

The as yet unspecified date for the vote in June has resulted from opposition to the governing body’s about-turn on promotion-relegation. This saw plans altered for it to precede the RFU AGM this Friday, June 11, and has raised suspicions that the RFU will attempt to mitigate adverse publicity if the Council approves ring-fencing, by holding the vote just before a major live rugby event.

This makes Friday, June 25, in the build-up to the Premiership final and the Lions v Japan the following day, a strong favourite. But who knows, given the workings of the current administration at Twickenham?

What we do know is that distrust of the RFU is rife among Championship clubs who, after seeing their funding slashed from £645,000 a year in 2019-20 to £146,000 this season, have been told that their only increment next season will be an extra £14,000 from Premiership Rugby.

This derisory increase contrasts starkly with the amounts of £50,000 to £60,000 which have been given in government grants, via the RFU, to England’s community clubs.