Freezing relegation may have dire long-term effects on English game

THE great promotion/ relegation stitch-up is underway. On Friday a sea-change was set in motion by the RFU Council, which – if it is allowed to stand – will alter the face of English Rugby Union for the foreseeable future, and possibly for generations to come.

The dismantling of the promotion/relegation system began with the Council voting to end relegation from the Premiership this season, but allow one side to be promoted from the Championship. The decision was taken despite all the participating clubs agreeing to promotion/relegation before the start of the 2020-21 season.

In the short-term it means that supporters of Premiership clubs can kiss goodbye to a competitive remainder of the season, with clubs in the bottom half of the league with a dwindling incentive to go full tilt at those above them. It leaves the league, apart from matches involving the top six teams, as a semi-competitive sham.

The rubber-stamping of the Premiership owner cartel’s long-term goal to ring-fence the top league stalled last week when the Council vote was delayed due to concerns at BT Sport. The Premiership’s broadcast partners raised questions about the competitive currency of the league being severely devalued, especially as they had just signed a three-year contract renewal worth £110m.

The reconvening of the Council seven days later meant that those misgivings have been resolved sufficiently, with the suggestion that BT Sport was persuaded that the suspension would be only for this season.

This was contradicted when the RFU statement said that the Council had not only approved immediate ring-fencing, but would also be considering a suspension of promotion/ relegation for a further three or four seasons. The RFU stated that the decision is due to be made, “before the end of the 2020-21 season”.

These bare-bones of the dismantled competitive league structure ripped through the bogus canvas of Council good intentions listed in an RFU Press release, including the Premiership, “developing a different approach to promotion and relegation”. There was little comfort in that as it blathered on about “retaining the ambition of Championship clubs”, and discussing “new minimum standard criteria, investment in facilities, and club funding”. No details supplied.

The air of unreality was made complete when Judge Jeff Blackett, who is both RFU president and chairman of the Council, pontificated about ensuring “we maintain the integrity of future league structures for England rugby” – while at the same time dropping a whopping great metal gate on the aspirations of Championship clubs, and all below them.

The biggest Premiership coup of all is the RFU Council swallowing their line that Covid match cancellations – six so far – has driven them to their ring-fencing position, despite PRL making no attempts to reschedule those games.

Covid was not responsible for the rampant player wage inflation which has left 11 of the 12 clubs in deficit. Nor is it any reason to deny Championship clubs – which have also been knocked sideways by Covid – the right to promotion to the top league for the next “three or four” seasons.

This ringfencing breaks new ground by winning RFU approval for the first time, despite the governing body previously upholding merit-based promotion/relegation regulations for the entire 33 years since the introduction of English club leagues.

It lays the foundations for a profound shift in the English game, which could result in the creation of a closed franchise-based elite like the NFL. If the Premiership follows the franchise model of major American sports there is every chance that the pro game will become estranged from its community base. The sense of the RFU as a national co-operative has been a strength of the English game since its inception in terms of shared identity, and support for the England team – and a rupture to that body politic threatens the game with fragmentation.

Adult male playing numbers are falling, despite an increase in the population in England of seven million people from 2000 to 2020 (49.2m to 56.2m), and a further impediment to promoting Rugby Union as a participation sport is likely to result from a franchise league which corners most of the sponsorship and broadcast money.

A core tenet of Rugby Union has always been that it is a participation sport. The RFU’s strategic plan from 2017-2021 states that its purpose is, “to encourage rugby, and its values to flourish across England”, and, “to be England’s strongest sport and the world’s leading rugby nation”.

Allowing the Premiership – which is already 27 per cent owned by venture capitalists CVC – to become a franchise league is unlikely to further those goals. CVC have a track record in delivering broadcast deals which have earned them healthy profits from the value of franchise sports like Formula One.

So, while Premiership clubs might share some of the coin, the flip side is that the aspirations of other clubs in the country will be shut down, and male playing numbers, which have stagnated, will fall further and faster than before.

The RFU Council’s support of ring-fencing makes the governing body’s mission to make rugby flourish across England sound like empty rhetoric.