Top-flight veto plan for buddy system

CONTROVERSIAL RFU plans for Premiership clubs to ‘buddy-up’ with their Championship counterparts have collapsed after top-flight sides blocked the move.

Innovative proposals by RFU professional rugby director Nigel Melville would have enabled hardup Championship clubs to utilise up to a dozen first team players from topflight partner clubs, along with an unlimited number of academy youngsters in need of game time.

Premiership Rugby’s A League would in turn have been scrapped, with playing and coaching resources diverted to Championship clubs under increasing financial pressure against a backdrop of declining interest and falling gates.

However, those plans are dead in the water, with a senior Premiership insider saying: “The clubs have taken a decision not to sup--

port it because when you look at what was on the table and break it down, the numbers just didn’t add up.

“Nigel Melville’s buddy system was based on the fact that across the Premiership, on any given weekend, there were so many hundred players not playing.

“But when you take out injured guys, travelling reserves, guys on conditioning programmes or whatever, to buddy-up with someone you’d actually have had to recruit more players – and who’s going to pay for that?

“It’s not for us and it’s another of those RFU things where on the surface it looked like they were trying to do some good, but in reality they were trying to offload the problems of the Championship on to the Premiership.”

Premiership Rugby will now concentrate efforts on revamping the beleagured A-League, while the number of dual-registered players in the Championship is set to be increased.

Championship clubs can currently access six dualregistered players but the insider added: “As a group of clubs we’d like to see that increased and if it was ten players that would be a significant help to both the Premiership and Championship clubs.

“And there’s a desire to do more with the A-League because not all clubs are as committed to it as they need to be. You could see us double the number of Agames played next season because the current programme is inadequate.”

Nottingham chairman Alistair Bow said he would welcome the opportunity to increase his number of dual-registered players. “Nigel Melville’s plan had some mileage in it but there were too many hurdles to cross,” Bow said.

“If it was going to get momentum behind it they needed to up the number of dual-registrations from six to ten and let the Championship clubs concentrate more on developing England-qualified players.

“That would have been a start to what Nigel was trying to achieve and I’d like to think we can still work towards that.”

An RFU spokesman said: “We are working with all stakeholders to move positively forward with new regulations that support the increased movement of players and we are determined to drive change.

THE idea that English Premiership clubs have rejected the ‘buddy’ initiative with Championship clubs because they feared they were in danger of being saddled with the second tier’s problems should be taken with a cellar of salt.

The main reason that the buddy system hatched by Nigel Melville, the RFU’s professional rugby director, has been elbowed aside by the Premiership clubs – as reported in our front page news story– is that they were not going to get the de facto control of Championship clubs that they wanted.

Wisely, most Championship clubs were not prepared to lose their independence, their identity, or sacrifice their dreams of supping at the top table, by becoming the second teams of Premiership masters. That they would become Premiership lackeys in return for eight squad players and unlimited academy access, in return for forgoing the right to promotion, was always the thin end of the wedge.

The Championship clubs recognised that the deal they were being offered was seriously flawed, and opted instead to concentrate on finalising a new three-year agreement with the RFU and the PRL. This has seen them secure an annual increment which has almost doubled from £1 million to £1.9m, of which it is believed that £1.5m will be shared equally between the 12 Championship clubs, increasing their annual funding to almost £600,000 each.

In return, the Championship clubs have agreed to jettison the play-off format and replace it with a first past the post system, with the club finishing at the top of the table over the course of the regular season winning promotion to the Premiership and an injection of between around £1.5m and £6m, depending on the club’s ‘P’ share status.

The remaining £400,000 of the increased payment will be distributed as so-called ‘meritocracy payments’, with the biggest share of the prize money going to the club that finishes second to the promoted champions, and graded amounts thereafter depending on league position. This guarantees the Championship runner-up c. £660,000, which is almost double the £350,000 each Championship club received annually in central funding three years ago.

Although the meritocracy funding is extremely modest, it at least guarantees a financial incentive to each club to remain competitive until the end of the season. As one Championship director told me: “We were concerned that there might be nothing to play for after Christmas if the top club is 20 points clear by then. Securing the extra £400,000 as compensation for the loss of the play-off income is important, because it means we are playing for something from the first game to the last.”

By comparison, the home and away play-off system offered a financial incentive only to the four Championship semi-finalists, with the rest of the clubs as bystanders – apart from those involved in the relegation battle at the foot of the table.

The all-important implications regarding promotion and relegation between the Premiership and the Championship, and between the Championship and National League 1, are not yet clear. However, given the massive differential in funding between Premiership and Championship clubs it is crystal clear that the top of the league table system will favour those relegated clubs who come down with a multi-million pound Premiership parachute payment.

This will, in turn, foster a yo-yo formula where the relegated club wins promotion the following season, with the aim of keeping the Premiership cartel – with its iniquitous ‘P’ share structure – a cosy members club.

However, as Exeter proved under the old play-off structure, the cartel can be thwarted. That remains the case with the top of the league system, but it is now incumbent on the Championship clubs to campaign vigorously for equal funding for any club promoted to the Premiership – and to mount a legal challenge under restraint of trade if it is not forthcoming.

“The Championship clubs recognised that the deal they were being offered was seriously flawed”

The gangway between the Championship and National League 1, which the RFU want to enforce as the dividing line between the professional game and the ‘amateur’ community game, is also being debated. The Championship clubs argue that there is a significant gap in standard and funding, and favour a home-and-away promotion/relegation play off between their last placed side and the National League 1 winners.

My argument is that if the Championship league winners are promoted automatically to the Premiership, then the National League 1 league winners should be promoted automatically to the Championship. When they earn promotion they should also earn equal funding.

It is a concept that our buddies in the Premiership struggle with, and it is called a fair and transparent promotion-relegation system.