Big-spender Eddie was a factor in Brown exit

AN OVERSPEND of £900,000 by Eddie Jones’ England set-up was yesterday identified as compounding the financial problems which led to the resignation of RFU chief executive Steve Brown this week.

The timing of Brown’s resignation after only 14 months in the role seemed precipitate given that it came in the middle of England’s largely successful Autumn series.

However, it comes only weeks before the RFU’s annual accounts are due to be published, with alarm bells ringing loudly already over an anticipated sharp increase in financial losses and it is likely that influenced the under-fire Brown to step down.

Jones reported directly to Brown and his alleged overspend has added to the storm clouds gathering over Twickenham with a rift between the community game, representing rankand-file clubs, and the RFU’s professional administration looming.

The conflict comes in the wake of the charges of financial mismanagement which saw Brown, the RFU’s former chief financial officer, resign.

A former senior RFU official predicted that there was conflict ahead. “The game (in England) is going to get a bit of a shock. There are serious implica-

tions with the RFU approaching a figure of £100m in debt. I think there will be eruptions.”

Whether those eruptions result in the SGM that was threatened in the summer, and a clear-out of the RFU management board headed by chairman Andy Cosslett, will be influenced by the seriousness of the financial fall-out.

Grassroots clubs had been alerted not only by cuts to their funding since the 2015 World Cup, but also by a detailed study of the RFU’s accounts by former RFU chief executive Francis Baron.

An examination of published RFU accounts by Baron, and additionally by Graeme Cattermole, a former RFU board chairman and senior executive with the NatWest Bank Group, have established net losses of £46.4m over the last six years.

There is a growing sense at grassroots level that the £220m payment by the RFU to the Premiership clubs under the Professional Game Agreement is at the root of the cuts, because it is more than the game can afford.

John Owen, a past RFU president who was also chairman of the community rugby committee for five years, is among those who believe that the balance of funding between the amateur and professional games has gone awry.

Owen says: “Community development officers have been reduced significantly in the recent round of RFU redundancies, with 40 of the 64 posts coming from the community game.

“With the RFU now talking about a further £5m reduction in annual spend, and £220m ring-fenced for the Premiership, the cuts can only come from the community game or the Twickenham staff.”

He added: “The distinction of funding was always a 50-50 split, but it is now 64 to the professional game and 36 to community game.

“I am an England man through and through, but where do they get the players from?

“From the community clubs and schools, and they have to be funded properly. That is what the game is about.”