RFU defends expiry of women’s contracts

Ian Ritchie, the Rugby Football Union chief executive, has written to shadow sports minister Rosena Allin-Khan to defend the decision not to renew the contracts of the England Women’s 15-a-side team.

Allin-Khan wrote to Ritchie last week to urge him to reconsider the move as it suggested the RFU was “far less than fully committed” to the women’s game.

This letter, which was signed by 124 MPs from across the political spectrum, was sparked by news that the contracts of the England players aiming to defend their World Cup crown in Ireland next month would expire after the tournament, with the RFU’s focus shifting to sevens. Allin-Khan wrote that the RFU policy of “cycling” between contracts for sevens and 15-aside rugby, depending on the next target, was “placing the risk of playing international rugby on the players themselves” and it was unfair to expect them to “pause and resume” their careers every two years.

“For an organisation with a total annual revenue in the hundreds of millions, to make this decision is deeply disappointing,” she added.

“Surely the RFU should be focused on investing in both aspects of the women’s game and should be prepared to back this up with secure contracts for both teams – 7s and 15s. After all, this is the commitment the RFU has made to the men’s game.”

But on Friday, Ritchie wrote back to Allin-Khan to say the RFU was “extremely proud” of its record in women’s rugby and that it took “player welfare extremely seriously”.

In the letter, Ritchie said: “There are 17 players on full-time contracts this season and there will be 17 players on full-time contracts next season. Because there is significant crossover between 7s and 15s players in international women’s rugby, many of the players on 15s contracts will transition to 7s contracts.

“It would harm the performance of both the 7s and 15s teams if we were to treat them as separate elite squads and therefore we work on a cycle to match the international rugby calendar and select the strongest available squad for each major tournament.”

Noting that central contracts were first given in 2014 for the build-up to Rio 2016’s sevens tournament, in which England finished fourth, Ritchie wrote that after August’s World Cup the next targets were the 2018 Sevens World Cup, the sevens at the 2018 Commonwealth Games and the sevens at Tokyo 2020.

He added that the RFU would support any 15s player who did not get a sevens contract, so their move from international to club rugby “is as smooth as possible” and claimed all concerned had been consulted.

Furthermore, Ritchie defended the RFU’s wider commitment to the women’s game, pointing out it was investing £2.4 million over the next three years in a new domestic competition and will be launching a campaign after the World Cup to double grass roots participation to 50,000 players by 2021.