‘It’s like the wild west’ Why the Championship is out of control
Speak to most players in the Greene King IPA Championship and they will tell you that they are living the dream as professional rugby players. The problem is how suddenly that dream can disappear and how little support there is to break their fall when it does.
Many are professional rugby players in name only, with a significant proportion earning less than £10,000 a year. By contrast, England players receive a £22,000 match fee per international. Unlike their brethren in the Gallagher Premiership, medical insurance and union representation – through the Rugby Players Association – are not automatically provided in the Championship. Nor is cardiac screening. These are what Richard Bryan, the RPA’S rugby director, describes as the “basic rocks of welfare provision” within professional rugby.
When things go wrong in English rugby’s second tier, they tend to go very wrong very quickly, whether that is through the risk of injury, docked wages or a contract being ripped up. Players, such as Richmond back-row Eddie Milne, have no choice but to accept these risks.
“If you came to a job interview and I told you that you could possibly get fired at any time if you don’t turn up, I am going to pay you £12k, you have to pay for your own insurance, food, accommodation and travel, and you will get injured doing it, then you would look at me like I am mad,” Milne said. “No one says anything because we do it because we love it. I love everything it has given me, the people and the experiences, which I will relish for life.”
Milne moved to Richmond this summer from London Scottish, where he was earning £8,000 a year on a part-time contract, and combines playing with studying for a medical degree. Coming from a spell in Leicester’s academy, Milne was shocked to find how little support there is for players in the Championship.
“Outside the top bracket there’s nothing,” Milne said. “Literally nothing. There’s no RPA, there’s no cardiac screening, there’s no health insurance. I have heard so many horror stories of players’ contracts being ripped up or [players] being told if you don’t play this week then we’ll sack you. I heard one story where a guy broke his leg and had to strap a metal bar to his leg in order to play.
“If I don’t play then it is not the end of the world because I am a student, but some lads, who have mortgages and families, are on £12,000. If they don’t play then, boom, they are out the door. That’s sport. You have to be willing to risk it to make it, but some of these guys are playing tier two, a good level, and they are full-time, earning less than minimum wage and supporting their families.”
This all comes down to cold, hard economics. Clubs receive up to £650,000 in central funding from the Rugby Football Union, depending on their league position. With average crowds last season of 1,909, there is simply not enough money to go round. Of course, there are huge discrepancies within the league. Last season, certain Bristol players earned more per year than other clubs’ entire playing budget. The vast majority of players to whom The Daily Telegraph spoke recognise this and attach little blame to the clubs, who are trying to operate within their means.
Some clubs provide cardiac screening, which costs about £150 a player, and medical insurance under a group policy. Others will split the cost of insurance 50-50, but some teams leave players to pick up the tab, particularly as the cost of a group policy has risen from £30,000 to £90,000 in three years. Individual premiums can range from £100 to £200 a month, a significant cost when salaries are so low. Being covered through medical insurance is undoubtedly the leading concern for players within the Championship. The alternative is to run the gauntlet of getting an operation on the NHS. “There are some things that the NHS does really well, but there are other things where you need the treatment done straight away so you can be playing again as soon as possible,” Tom Holmes, the Nottingham captain, said. “If you do a meniscus that is four or five weeks, so you have to wait four or five weeks. I know people who have had to wait a long time to get things done.”
There are numerous examples of players having to pay for private operations. The RFU says that part of the funding package it provides to clubs should be used towards providing medical insurance but, in the absence of any checks, the money goes elsewhere.
Just as concerning is the absence of compulsory cardiac screening. In February, Doncaster prop Ian Williams died after collapsing at training, which The Telegraph understands was related to an underlying cardiac condition. There is no guarantee that prior screening would have saved him, but Will Owen, a close friend at Doncaster, hopes it will act as a
spur for change. “We as a club have made it compulsory now on the back of the tragic loss of Ian,” Owen said. “That has hopefully woken people up to the reality that it can happen to anyone, because he was fit and healthy. It is important that every club makes it compulsory so something like that never happens again.”
An RFU spokeswoman said: “We are looking at options to expand our cardiac screening programme to include more clubs.”
It is cruelly ironic that the players who need the greatest protection are not afforded membership by the RPA, bar the club most recently relegated from the Premiership. Again it is a cost issue, with neither the RFU nor Premiership Rugby willing to underwrite the necessary cost.
“Unfortunately we do not currently have the resources or the funding to offer the services that are needed in the Championship,” Bryan said. “We have called upon the RFU and the Championship clubs to meaningfully engage with us in this area.”
Another insider at the RPA put it far more bluntly. “When we were talking about bringing the Championship under RPA protection, as a trade unionist, I have to wholly agree with the fact that they are professional rugby players and as the Rugby Players’ Association they should come under our umbrella,” a source said.
“As someone who has played there, you would be opening Pandora’s box. You will have issues every single day from every single club. Honestly, it is the wild west. You don’t know the scope of how bad it is with the contracts that they are on, the issues with insurance and injuries. You have to think about that because once you start it, you can’t stop and say it is too much for us.”
At a time when the RFU is making more than 60 staff members redundant, including many community coaches, and is withholding funding from the women’s game, it is hard to argue that the Championship budget should be increased drastically.
However, at the same time, the Championship remains the RFU’S flagship professional league. Even if the salaries are on a different scale to the Premiership, the physicality and risk of serious injury are virtually the same. The RFU has a moral obligation to provide the most basic of safeguards to those operating at the coalface of English rugby.