Chairmen miss junket

ONLY five chairmen of Championship clubs are attending the English Football League summer meeting in Vilamoura on the Algarve this week, which has long resembled more of an end- ofseason junket — with its gala dinners and drinks receptions — than a proper clubs business summit. One divisional meeting was reportedly chaired last year by a club boss who made it known he was very hungover, having gone to bed at 6am the night before.

Chairmen’s attendance is better in the lower divisions but 29 supremos out of 72 clubs going to Portugal is not a good ratio.

WITH Twickenham’s troubled East Stand extension already a whopping £30m over budget, the RFU are also paying dearly for their fifth-place finish in the Six Nations, which cost them a potential £500,000 in prize-money. Their budgetary troubles are such that a staff review is taking place, with a minimum of 20 redundancies, and maybe more, from a bloated 570-strong workforce.

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