Nick Cain column

PREMIERSHIP Rugby now has no fewer than three administrative arms, although signs of transparent policy-making from the multiple strands of the top English club league are not much in evidence. This has been highlighted by its premature decision to cancel fixtures called off due to Covid infections, rather than postpone them.

Given the uncertain landscape over other competitions and tours during the pandemic, postponement would have made far better sense than cancellation.

The arrival of the vaccines might also be a potential game changer. So why are the Premiership making such significant decisions now, which could have the impact of twisting the flagship competition out of shape, when they do not have to, with the playoffs not scheduled until June?

The cancellations have the potential to turn this season into a lottery, with teams who play all their games, or the majority of them, in danger of finding themselves at the foot of the table, below teams who have half their games cancelled.

Why put the reputation of the league in jeopardy?

The limp rationale offered by Premiership Rugby is that there are no spare weekends for rearranged fixtures as the calendar stands now, and therefore they have to take the cancellation route.

The best and fairest course of action is to rescind cancellations made so far due to Covid, and postpone them instead.

Having played midweek games last season, there should also be that flexibility this campaign, and cancellation should be used only as a last resort.

The cancellation approval will have come from the Investor Board, which is now fronted by a new chairman, Nigel Melville.

This Board is basically the decision-making arm of the often fractured, quarrel-riven clubs in the 13-team cartel, who are united by just one policy – to get rid of promotionrelegation by ring

“Fairest course of action is to rescind cancellations made so far”

fencing.

This will have been rubber-stamped by the Premiership’s administrative appendages, the Rugby Committee and the Rugby Board (commercial).

The main officers of the Rugby Committee are Melville (chairman), Darren Childs (chief executive) and Phil Winstanley (director of rugby). It is responsible for rugby decisions from the salary cap through to competitive structures and player welfare – and interfaces with the shadowy, non-accountable joint Premiership-RFU quango, the PGB.

The Rugby Board is chaired by Andy Higginson, the chairman of Morrison’s (supermarkets).

This is responsible for TV rights/sponsorship and comprises Childs – who has been bumped sideways by Melville’s appointment – as well as three club representatives and three from CVC, the private equity firm that own 27 per cent of Premiership Rugby.

Higginson was an independent director of the RFU board from 2011 to 2016, and Melville was acting chief executive of the RFU until just over a year ago.

This maintains a controversial crossover with the RFU that started in 2018 when Ian Ritchie, the RFU chief executive responsible for the English governing body’s £230m PGA with the Premiership in 2016, jumped ship to become chairman of the Premiership Rugby Board – before handing over to Higginson in 2019.

Another controversial crossover was the decision in 2019 by Mark McCafferty, Premiership Rugby’s chief executive for 14 years before being succeeded by Childs, to join CVC soon after their shareholding deal was announced.

Given this exchange in key personnel, and its attendant whiff of a jobs-for-the-corporate-boys takeover in rugby administration, it is perhaps not surprising that the RFU remain mute when the Premiership make decisions which are not in the best interests of the English game.

Allowing the Premiership to nobble the English promotion-relegation system by slashing central funding for clubs promoted from the Championship is a case in point.

It is also why the decision to cancel five Covid-hit matches from 36 in the opening six rounds of this season’s Premiership deserves much closer scrutiny.

While the formula for awarding four points to the non-responsible club, and two to the infected club, might be acceptable if games cannot be played before the playoffs, it is jumping the gun.

It also promotes a strong suspicion that the main reason for the precipitate decision to cancel the fixtures is because it plays into the hands of those Premiership club owners who want ringfencing.

Their argument that there is no place for promotion-relegation during the pandemic, because it could push a number of Premiership clubs into insolvency, is fundamentally bogus.

As long as a relegated club has a parachute payment as a member of the cartel, they would still have a massive advantage in any Championship promotion race.

Furthermore, there is no reason why relegation would be the decisive factor in their insolvency – because the over-spending factors which contributed to it would almost certainly have been present long before they went down.

This season started under the one-up onedown promotionrelegation format, and with the RFU confirming that status quo, players and coaches, as well as supporters and sponsors, will expect it to be honoured.

Yet, the Premiership’s cancellation policy has ring-fencing fingerprints all over it, and the RFU’s silence is deafening.

“This plays into hands of club owners who want ring-fencing”