Gloucester fury RFU accused of singling out Cipriani with disciplinary charge

Club claim fly-half is picked on as a celebrity Ban could rule player out of Premiership start

Stephen Vaughan, the Gloucester chief executive, yesterday accused the Rugby Football Union of “singling out” Danny Cipriani for his celebrity after the governing body charged the controversial fly-half with conduct prejudicial to the game.

David Barnes, the RFU head of discipline, decided to charge the 30-year-old under Rule 5.12 yesterday following his conviction on Thursday for assault and resisting arrest. Cipriani was fined £2,000 and ordered to pay £250 to the female police officer he injured when resisting arrest in the early hours of Wednesday. Cipriani now faces a possible suspension which could cause him to miss the start of the Gallagher Premiership season.

The charge provoked a furious reaction from Vaughan, who claims to have been told that the governing body would await the outcome of the club’s internal disciplinary process next week.

The RFU denies providing any such assurances to Vaughan. Gloucester also firmly believe that there is no basis for charging Cipriani for a criminal conviction.

“There is no historic precedent of a player being singled out in this manner, and we feel that this disciplinary process has been influenced by the significant media coverage of this week’s events and other external factors and not based on the actual facts of the matter,” Vaughan said.

Rule 5.12 acts as a catch-all disrepute charge and was used by the RFU last season to suspend Denny Solomona, the Sale wing, for four weeks for his alleged homophobic abuse of Worcester’s Jamie Shillcock. It has also been used to administer suspensions for abuse of match officials and racist abuse.

However, it never appears to have been employed to punish further a player for a non-rugby related criminal conviction. The RFU brought no charges against Manu Tuilagi, the Leicester centre, in 2015 when he was charged with two counts of assaulting female police officers, although he was dropped from England’s World Cup squad by head coach Stuart Lancaster. Nor were any RFU charges brought against either Cipriani or Danny Care, the England scrumhalf, when they were previously convicted of drink-driving.

The club have rallied fully behind Cipriani. Gloucester believe that he was a victim of an unfortunate set of circumstances outside the Little Drift nightclub and, for all his past baggage, they are determined to protect his reputation.

“We are surprised and extremely disappointed to have recently received notification of disciplinary action against Danny Cipriani by the RFU,” Vaughan said. “Yesterday afternoon [Thursday] I received a personal assurance from the RFU that no disciplinary discussions would take place until we had completed our own conversations as stated in our club release.

“With the team in Belfast for Saturday’s pre-season friendly against Ulster, we had indicated that this would be carried out early next week following the team’s return. In summary, we do not agree with the RFU’S decision to embark upon a disciplinary process before we have concluded our own internal discussions and fail to understand the reasons for this approach.

“We do not believe that this decision and the subsequent unnecessary public attention that will now follow it is in the best interests of either the RFU, the club, the player nor the game in general.”

The RFU insists that nothing has changed in its approach, despite indicating on Thursday that it would await the conclusion of Gloucester’s disciplinary process early next week. The ruling body will still wait for Gloucester’s findings before Cipriani is brought before an independent disciplinary panel next week. Having been punished by a court of law – and by that of public opinion – Cipriani faces further penalties from Gloucester and the RFU. Should Gloucester administer something beyond a slap on his “gold wrists” then the RFU panel is unlikely to add a further ban.

Despite his lengthy rap sheet of off-field incidents, Cipriani has a relatively clean slate as far as the RFU disciplinary process is concerned. It is, however, yet another unwanted distraction with the new season two weeks away.

Cipriani ended last season as England’s incumbent No 10, starting the final Test against South Africa. A move from Wasps to Gloucester was supposed to act as a launch pad to even greater things.

It still might. If he is playing well enough then England head coach Eddie Jones would have no qualms about selecting him, and Steve Diamond, his former coach at Sale Sharks, believes it would be unwise to jettison Cipriani.

“It would be too harsh,” Diamond told the BBC. “England need all the help they can get at the moment and players like him are few and far between.

“When you employ a rugby player, you know you are not employing the Pope. An incident happens and I think if anything he should know a bit better than most as people are waiting for him to make mistakes. The magistrates have dealt with it quickly, he’s paid his fine, apologised profusely and we move on.”