JIFF & French squads

Premiership rugby teams are not there to run the England team, they are stand alone businesses. When the game went pro the top teams asked the RFU if they were going to run the game in England and they said no, the only home nation to do so.

Whilst they pay for access to players for training and playing for the National side, currently they do not fund any players, there is talk this may change in the next few weeks however.

There is a restriction on how many overseas players can be in a side and I kind of understand the reason, rugby doesn't want to follow soccer. It is however restrictive practice, which I am against, how can you restrict a sports persons right to work, in any other form of employment it would be called cloudberry..

and yes I am as old as you lol, Radio Luxemburg, I visited the place when I was there in 1970'

How the hell does that work, would you want Cambridge to have no players of their own and rely on Premiership dr's, because that is exactly what you are saying, run a club, sell tickets to fans for games to generate your income without knowing who is going to turn up and play?

Were I running Premiership rugby I would be telling the RFU there's no player release when a league game is played, you know like soccer does. Can you imagine the uproar if fans from a Premiership soccer team got the reserves turn out for a crucial league game against bitter rivals.

How the hell does that work, would you want Cambridge to have no players of their own and rely on Premiership dr's, because that is exactly what you are saying, run a club, sell tickets to fans for games to generate your income without knowing who is going to turn up and play?[QUOTE/]

Not sure where you see my comment about JIFF etc. turning into loan only - I've not participated in this thread yet other than to start it!

However, no. I'd want Cambridge to stay a community team with 4teams, Colts, Mini & Youth, feeding up into our 1st XV squad or encouraging to move higher. We have had some Loan players from Northampton and various returning from injury.

I'll re-read my original post to see if I've led to misunderstanding

 

Keeping it to the Premiership if it makes it simple, two teams play in the playoff final, for arguments sake we can say that all English qualified players in these two teams are taken away from their clubs and given new contracts of employment to satisfy the RFU's England's needs. What happens to the two clubs, will they get their players back, will England's coaches demand they want to see new combinations and swap players about, insist they are played in different positions for the benefit of England's plans. What exactly is the benefit for those clubs? Do you really think that would actually happen twice, because the clubs would not hire EQ players having been loquat by the RFU?

Want an example, most recent springs to mind was Sam Burgess placed with Bath, didn't do England any favours, didn't do the player any favours, he went back to RL and Bath didn't benefit either.

The clubs all of them from level 10 up have always brought on the players which have risen through the pyramid, England just harvested the ones at the top with some financial support but nothing else. You plan to take the players away from their teams and coaches , well the last few years could just give you an idea how that has worked.

The RFU are the body that should have taken a lead on the sport, the PRL are almost solely interested in survival of it's members, sadly the game at the top has drawn in the worst of people to be involved with it.

 I have seen at National league level exactly what happened to Worcester, property developers seeing rugby clubs run by inexperienced amateurs as perfect targets to rob for land for development.

I don't think anyone can make money running a sports team in the UK, soccer is bankrupt with debts in the hundreds of millions, Derby County nearly went under, could another club fall down the leagues and lose their billionaire investors when they get bored? There are a couple of clubs in the rugby Premiership that are close to being sustainable with incomes that don't solely rely on sugar daddies, but I cannot see any of the others coming close to being self sustaining. 

For the RFU to now want to step in and take the players is frankly too little too late. Clubs over paying players because they can, raising all players expectations income wise is bankrupting the game. A proposal this week to not raise the salary cap is seemingly being resisted. There are clubs who want to buy more players on inflated salaries, for something like this to work we would have to introduce the French system where all the books are open, money has to be there at the beginning of the season, not lies and false promises, clubs have to sustainable or they don't play. Trouble is it might be too late to introduce such a system, Saracens refused to open their books and took relegation instead, gives you an idea on how the game is being run.

I don't want 4 franchises like the Irish have with the RFU's favourite getting all the internationals, just so they can try and win a World Cup. I want a vibrant league where fans can go and watch good games, one with merit and reward, all the way through the leagues from the bottom to the top, ring fencing will starve the roots of the game it has to go.

Is worth pointing out that that is a massive undervaluation of what the Premiership clubs provide, RFU revenues are totally reliant on Premiership clubs and their players. The IRFU invest about 14% more of their income into rugby overall, i.e. they run a leaner operation that generates more profit, then of that higher figure invest an even greater proportion into their pro set up.

Premiership clubs also cannot have a sponsor who clashes with the competition sponsors, so while we can debate if that's a reasonable restriction it is not one born by other clubs alone.

The current Professional Game Agreement saved the RFU by passing on all of the risk to the Premiership clubs. This is why the salary cap had to be cut, why such large covid loans were needed to clubs (and none to the RFU) and also destabilised finances in the longer term as PRL had to over distribute its reserves to try and cover for the savage cuts by the RFU.  That over distribution is currently being corrected, meaning central distributions are still bellow 2017 levels.  Entirely thanks to the RFU.

When people ask why are England test players having to go to France it is squarely the RFU's fault.  They reduced their payments to the Premiership massively (by well over £15m collectively), at the time when the clubs had also lost their main source of revenue (matchday revenue is roughly double TV income in most clubs), and also stymied the clubs ability to bounce back as quickly because those TV revenues had to reduce this year to balance out their previous over distribution. 

The RFU should spend MORE on the Pro game as that will help their own national team generate more income for them & the clubs to generate more income from European competitions.