Let the Prem run England!
Igot a bit of stick in the letters page last week because of my enthusiastic support for the CVC investment in Gallagher Premiership Rugby, but I’d describe my attitude to that as unrepentant!
A lot of the criticism revolves round ‘grass roots rugby’ or, in other words, the amateur game.
You get this gulf between amateur and professional in every sphere of sport – the golf I enthusiastically play bears no resemblance to that played by the pros, and your average club tennis player wouldn’t take a single point off a middleof-the-road ATP player. Quite simply, we and they are playing totally different games.
It’s great that we amateurs get out in the fresh air enjoying our sport, but that’s all we’re doing – our day job is what pays the bills, and it’s good for our mental and physical health that we can relax at the weekend. Compare that with the training and playing regime of the full-time professional rugby player – it’s chalk and cheese.
That’s where I struggle with some of the critics who perceive a linkage between lower-level leagues and the Premiership. The only link that I can see is that the elite game attracts an audience which indirectly funds what’s happening in amateur clubs around the country. The paying spectators fund it only in part, as the owners chip in when a club is loss-making.
However, I hear you say, what about the money that the RFU directs towards the Premiership clubs? It’s rent, pure and simple. Back in the dark days the RFU could have set things up differently, and effectively ‘owned’ the clubs, which would have led to central contracts, and maybe, heaven forbid, franchises.
It’s one of those ‘if ’ things…if we had ham we could have ham and eggs, if we had eggs! It didn’t happen, and it’s not going to happen now, so get over it and move on.
The current situation is that the RFU want to have an England team but they haven’t got any contractual link with the players they want, so they have to go to the owners of the players’ contracts, the clubs, and negotiate.
Jeff Probyn mentioned in his column a highly-critical piece about the relationship between CVC and F1. There is a crucial difference between that situation and the current one in rugby: CVC owned a majority stake in F1, but when they tried to get 51% of the Premiership they were rebuffed. As for criticising CVC’s actions regarding F1, in any business if you are the majority shareholder you can, within the constraints of the law, do whatever you like, and while journos can legitimately express a view on that, it’s not really got much to do with them!
That’s the reality of running a business…if you cede control then it generally has gone forever – thankfully the owners were smart enough to know that and only sell a minority holding.
In his letter Jeff Gage criticised me for describing the Premiership as being successful, pointing to the losses that most clubs make. He has a point, up to a point! I have in the past been critical of Premiership Rugby for not setting in place some criteria forcing the clubs to plan a path to break even, and like everyone else I worry about what would happen if one or two ‘sugar daddies’ lost interest and walked away.
However, that’s a strong argument in favour of the investment from CVC – it injects cash into the Premiership, and hopefully there will be more to come as they start to do their job. I wonder whether some of the Premiership’s critics have been kicked into life because they now see the league as becoming more sustainable, and their pipe dream of the RFU assuming full control recedes even further?
I wonder whether a root and branch restructuring of the English game isn’t now called for? If there are so many parties that are unhappy with the status quo, maybe it’s time to change it. There is such a gulf between the Premiership and the lower levels – even the Championship – that might it not be best to simply have a clean break?
Let the Premiership also run the England team, with it written into the contract that they have to pay a sizeable fee to rent Twickenham, and are obliged to play the vast majority of England matches there for the foreseeable future. The RFU will still own their prime asset.
The money from that rental could be used by the RFU to fund the grass roots in a way that the Premiership’s critics would like, and the surplus from the gate receipts minus the fair rent, could go to improving the England team and the clubs. The RFU could continue to liaise with World Rugby on the laws of the game, and provide a chargeable refereeing service to the Premiership.
That way you’d have professionals running the professional game, and the grass roots could be run by elected amateur officials and paid officers. It has a certain appeal to it.
“Is a major restructuring of the English game now called for?”