RFU playing figures are wrong says Cattermole
GRAEME Cattermole, former RFU chairman, has followed his farreaching interview in last week’s Rugby Paper by questioning the governing body’s insistence that playing numbers have remained stable.
In a reply accompanying last week’s article, the RFU said: “Numbers taking part in Rugby Union have remained stable, against a general downward trend in team sports over the past few years. “Over 2.5m enjoy rugby of which 500,000 are regular players and more than 100,000 are volunteers supporting 2,000 clubs up and down the country. Building upon an inherently healthy community game, we continue to focus on sustaining and enhancing men’s XV-aside rugby, while growing women’s and girl’s playing numbers, which have substantially increased.”
Cattermole says: “My assessment from talking to individuals in the game as well as reading information on club and CB websites as well as in the media is different to the assessment stated by the RFU.
“It is my view that the game at a) the mini level is probably static or might have seen a small increase b) the Youth level numbers have decreased c) the male adult game has definitely contracted and d) the women’s and girl’s game has grown substantially.
“The latter has masked the large decline in the male adult game which brings about the general assessment that participation numbers ‘have remained stable’.
“The RFU should be required to publish publicly the current participation numbers in each of the above categories and compare them with, say, 2011. I am sure the data is available within the RFU.
“Another important statistic to gauge the “health” of the male adult game would be to publish the current number of XV-a-side teams fielded by each club in membership of the RFU again compared with 2011.
“I am sure this would prove that the male adult game has contracted dramatically and needs urgent action to curtail the contraction as well as to stop haemorrhaging money which is not addressing falling participation levels in the male adult game.
“I find it unbelievable that the current chairman of the RFU management board, Andy Cosslett, could stand up in public and declare in April 2019 that ‘the governing body had seen a five per cent increase in male playing members over the last few years’.
“I would love to see the evidence that Mr Cosslett had received to support making such an unbelievable statement!
“It brings me back to emphasise the comments I made in last Sunday’s
Rugby Paper that the RFU needs to start to be open, transparent and truthful with the membership of the RFU in all its actions over the current health of the game in England.”