Don’t mention 66 to RFU

THE similarities with ’66 that are now resounding around English football have a rather different meaning at Twickenham, where 66 RFU staff are losing their jobs in a mass cost-cutting exercise.

An RFU spokeswoman said: ‘It is likely there will be around 66 redundancies at the end of the process.’

lMOST of those involved in a last-minute scramble for tickets for England’s semi-final against Croatia in Moscow on Wednesday are going to be disappointed. The official England allocation has long been sold and players’ family and friends will be given priority for any tickets that become available. At the most, there are expected to be 5,000 England supporters inside the 78,000-capacity Luzhniki Stadium.

ITV Sport took a major gamble after the World Cup draw by making it their priority to have first choice on the semi-finals over the BBC, despite England not reaching that stage of the competition since 1990.

Their audience for the game against Croatia in a country gripped by this tournament is going to challenge the landmark 26.9million who watched the opening ceremony of London 2012 on the BBC.

The Beeb pulled in 19.6m for the quarter-final against Sweden plus a record 3.9m programme requests online, which are increasingly going to dilute terrestrial figures in this multi- channel, multi-outlet digital age.