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Relegation too Nat 1? Or lower?

No idea.

Not sure, but I am presuming it means "Prem 2" if it happens will be a new division inserted above.

Practically it would mean losing the ability to sponsor player and staff employment visas and no money from the RFU at all.

Regardless of their words, they seem to really be after a professional Premiership and an amateur rest of the game and nothing in the middle. 

Seriously lacks any ambition from the RFU and protects their own self interests. Doesn't really feel like we have moved on since the days of the infamous Will Carling quote.

The game is not finished, it is thriving quite nicely in the National Leagues and below.

The Championship Clubs need to face reality. The RFU are not interested in the Championship and the sooner you all realise that and join the National leagues the better.

For too long now the Championship Clubs have relied on ever decreasing RFU subsidies in order to maintain squads that are simply too large and see a lot of good rugby players not getting a game on a Saturday. Championship Clubs have tried to 'keep up with the Jones'' and found out that it is simply not sustainable. 

The answer is for the Championship to become the top league in the National Leagues and stop all of this moaning about promotion and relegation to the Premiership. It is pointless. Why would you want to be promoted to the Premiership. None of the Championship Clubs would survive one season in the Premiership. It would be embarrassing for them and their supporters.

We need to cut the Premiership adrift, wait for the Clubs to go bankrupt as they try to keep up with the French and, watch it implode from afar.

If the National Leagues were expanded to take in Championship Clubs and, all of the Regional Leagues, think of the power that the National Leagues would have. We could tell Twickers where to shove it!

I suspect this situation is only of real interest to Tiers 2 & 3 and is exactly what the RFU and Premiership clubs want, but is the pragmatic solution. 

The main issue in this scenario is any financial commitments made by Championship clubs to meet infrastructure needs of Championship rugby such as toilets, parking, changing rooms and spectator seating.

National Leagues are 56 clubs, Championship 11. Create a 4 th Regional league of 14 clubs with promotion / relegation into National 1 of 4 clubs would make it spicy. There would need to be an adjustment down the leagues to bring National 1 to 14 clubs. 

The main issue in this scenario is any financial commitments made by Championship clubs to meet infrastructure needs of Championship rugby such as toilets, parking, changing rooms and spectator seating.

Agreed- not just the financial aspects of those things too, there is also the practical- from the point of view of a disabled supporter, if certain aspects of Championship infrastructure disappeared upon joining the National Leagues it would be impossible for me, and I’m sure others in my position, to watch a game. 

I cannot stand for 80 minutes + and need access to a toilet. I do have a wheelchair which would obviously guarantee me a seat but trying to get to away games on my own as I usually do- especially in London, would be prohibitively difficult. (I have taken my wheelchair to Lady Bay on several occasions without issue, mostly because the access is good and my husband can drop me off and pick me up in the car) 

£10m p.a. and direct promotion/relegation with acceptable minimum standards (5k capacity, outline planning permission for 10k, and evidence of work towards 10k without a hard cut off deadline would be mine) are definitely things worth pushing for.

Asking for £20m p.a. and wanting to play in a muddy field with limited minimum standards isn't.  I'd like to see this April Council paper mentioned by the RFU to know if I should be pushing my club to support it or oppose it.

Disabled facilities need to be addressed - my disabled parking space is sometimes redesignated and blue badge parking moved further away - but it is there.  The RFU offer to the Championship clubs is not all cash. I do wonder how Championship clubs would feel if atop slice was taken for National League clubs facilities grants! 

On the council: It is modernisation, don't you know.

On funding: the current funding just about pays for having an ambulance on site during the game. What it does not do is provide any money for development - or to run a professional squad.

In the past, clubs did rely on the RFU funding to pay for a squad, but I am looking at Esher, Sedgley Park, Newbury, Otley and Manchester. The sides that were relegated in 2009.

In F1 value in kind meant IBM puts their logo on the car and F1 team provides 30 top grade tickets at the Monaco GP.

But between the RFU and the clubs. What is it?

I'm in total agreement that the Premiership clubs be cut free to enter the race to oblivion, and then the RFU would be able to provide some funds for everyone else. 

The top-slicing of Tier 2 funds is to pay for central marketing. The RFU are prepared to pay to promote Tier 2 but does not want to fund playing squads (even though they do that at Premiership). The standards they issued are mostly sensible, although they do require Clubs to have a Stand (Caldy and Ampthill have a problem). 

The National Leagues are themselves discussing minimum standards to improve spectator experience, based on the views expressed by many that our rugby is better live viewing than Tier 1.

I agree with the idea of Tier 2 joining NLR, it has been suggested, but one stumbling block is that Tier 2 want their own Governing body, like PRL, and the RFU doesn’t want that.

14th June is getting close but don’t rely on the RFU Council, too many of them have no proper link to Club rugby.

Most of the Championship clubs were once level 6 clubs once, so feel your pain.

And they are still volunteer run clubs, it is just the committee's get to worry about bigger bills.

And it is the Premiership clubs poaching our players.

I couldn't disagree with any statement more than this (excluding the too large squad point Ben Ward). The crowds for the national leagues are piffling compared to even the Championship. Up and down the leagues we're seeing falls in participation and more and more walkovers. Male participation numbers are constantly dropping. Infrastructure at even the Championship level is falling apart. That's not rude health, that's a rugby pyramid that's becoming inverted.

The sentiment above could be written by Bill Sweeney himself, and he'd hug you if he read it. If we ever want to see a broad base to the pyramid, then we need RFU funds not to be going to the elite 10 clubs, but spread up and down the leagues to ambitious clubs that will invest in growing the game. The only way to get the money out of the RFU is by breaking the PRL monopoly and ring fence.

What I would be interested to know is if the current Championship clubs would be happy merging with the National Leagues, and leaving the idea of one day being promoted to the Prem behind? 

It seems to me that the RFU and their partners are quite set in what they require from Champ clubs if a new Prem 2 is ever to get off the ground, but months down the line there is no mutual agreement on the fine grain detail.

Would the current big Championship beasts of Ealing, Pirates, Cov and Donny (some of which do/have relied on wealthy benefactors like Prem clubs) be content reducing their expenditure/costs and business model (as these sides are actually functioning businesses as well as rugby clubs) to align more equally with the exclusively semi-pro National 1 clubs?

It'll be interesting to see if it does become a case of who blinks first between the RFU and the Champ clubs, but I get the sense the RFU are in no great hurry.

Less and less schools are playing rugby, a huge concussion law suit will continue to see this trend continue.

The top competition in the country is a series of exhibition games as no one gets relegated. Big broadcasters don't want it and even International games are relegated to a streaming service.

Professional teams are going bankrupt left right and centre and no serious investors are interested. To not even be able to see London Irish to the Americans really highlights the state the game is in. Rugby in America is hitting new heights in the build up.to their world cup..

Falling playing numbers. Bankrupt clubs. Broken system. Class action. Falling broadcasting revenues.

Your individual clubs might be healthy but the game is certainly not.

But if RFU agreed to one-up/one-down between T1 and T2, then combined that with a promise of £700-800K per club as long as each club secured matching investment from their own sources, you would have the makings of two professional leagues.

The Prem clubs think relegation=death for their comrade-club so are fighting it. In a workable scenario, a promoted club would need to be included in the Prem glee club of funding and the relegated club would have to take their chance with the funding they could raise in a realistic investment found. But the rules would be the same for all. It's called competition. Current rules are anti-competitive. 

The game has to move forward in the hope/expectation that such investment will repay itself in a medium-term situation (3-5 seasons) through increased crowds and participation - as long as Championship clubs didn't just add to player-wage inflation (a big 'if').

The alternative is Championship going semi-pro, a vast gap developing between Tier 1&2 that would affect development of young players, and the Premiership dying a slow death. It would only take one more T1 club to go down for the whole Prem to become untenable both to TV companies and to external investors. 

One thing is for sure though, none of us know which way this will all pan out.

This is at the heart of it - what, if anything, would go below the Prem if the current Champ clubs were to stay strong, hold out and step out en masse? Possibly PRL & RFU have some notion that you'd cobble together a league of, say, 12, from the three defunct Prem teams (for all the moral and logistical issues around such a move), 4-5 of the more ambitious Champ clubs who might break ranks, and 4-5 Nat 1 clubs who have the money and ambition to step up. But can that happen? I'd say almost certainly not if the Champ clubs stay tight/united, and at the moment they seem pretty strong.

Also agree with more recent comments from Breakdown, and others including Gerg who have rightly questioned the rose-tinted 'game's in good health from L3 downwards' assessment.

The question marks over the Champ and effect on would-be backers/sponsors have already led some clubs to go p/t, one (Jersey Reds) to disappear and the backer of another (Pirates) to put mid-season break clauses in staff contracts. 

I really do struggle with all this.

Past experience has shown that the more money any club has, the more will go to the players with no long term benefits for the club. We know that England will only select players from the Premiership clubs, and I therefore struggle to understand what a revised Championship level is for and why it should be professional. 

We've hear talk of it being a development league for Premiership academy and bench players - in effect a glorified Premiership A league. Is this what the aspiring clubs, players or supporters want? Would that attract media interest which drives sponsorship?  I suspect not. 

Generally I think we need a wider debate on the future structure of the game and whether a national pyramid structure - with promotion and relegation based sorely on results - is  the structure that benefits the game at all levels. 

Would we be better with 'closed' county or divisional leagues and a end of season cup competition for the winners of each to decide a National champion? 

Should we be following non-league football with including minimum ground conditions at each step of a pyramid? Should be we looking at having different league structures for midweek, evening. Saturday and Sunday rugby - therefore widening the opportunities for players to play outside of Saturday afternoons?

I think you make important points here, Richard. The Championship's collective view seems to be that the reformed league should be able to close the performance gap with the Premiership (a la France) while preserving the integrity of the clubs that are in it - many of which are as old as the game itself and wholly embedded in their own communities (naming no names, but we all know).

So it should not become a feeder league like AAA in US baseball, but nor should it be allowed to starve on next-to-no central funding. I don't believe the Championship clubs want to stoke inflation in players' wages. They want money to go into ground and facility development and into spreading the game more widely in their communities. If they got more central funding and just spaffed it on players, then they deserve to receive no more. Maybe the answer would be to agree higher funding and let an external independent body audit how those funds are spent for the good of the game as a whole?

Open up all the leagues to promotion/relegation and let the cream rise to the top. 

The RFU and the elite game is cutting off their own supply chain. It is just a really dumb move.  

However (and I don't know the answer to this), do you think the RFU and Premiership would point to the fact there are very roughly circa 500 players in all of the current Prem squads as a whole (soon to be reduced I believe). And of these 500 or thereabouts, how many have played regular L2 - L5 rugby in the last 2 seasons for arguments sake?

There will undoubtedly be some (a few per season moving from L2 up to the Prem - eg Will Rigg from Cov to Chiefs) but the numbers very minimal and could easily be counted on 2 hands. 

I am very much playing devil's advocate here, but would the RFU (not that they'd ever publicly admit it) and Prem clubs believe that they could survive on the combination of just elite schoolboy, BUCS, academy and foreign players, without regarding L2 - L5 as even being a necessity in keeping the supply chain well stocked?

I don't agree with this potential outlook at all, but would be interested in what others think. Is it the case that, in reality behind closed doors, the RFU and Prem don't actually believe that they need L2 and below in shaping the future adult players and that they will have enough players playing the game at school > academy/university > Prem A league > Prem starting XV > England XV. 

If the RFU decide that the professional game is going to be ring-fenced, and they are not going to support the amateur game - whether there are ten teams inside or twenty is somewhat immaterial.

I do not think they can sell a second tier of rugby to the TV, so I do not see how they could afford to support 20 professional teams - and there is a risk that some of the current ten will topple when DCMS asks for their money back. But those sides should no longer be called clubs - they are franchises.

In that case, the Championship and National 1 clubs that fall outside the pale would do best to form a single National League. With the winner promoted as the Champion club in England.

We can look what the structure could look like under that. We know there is no good solution, just grades of compromise.

If the RFU has money to spend - and it really ought to - it needs to go in developing the game

Taking the game into state schools and running taster sessions, and then building links to the local clubs mini and youth sections - or setting up clubs in the schools.

Because, unless we draw new people into the game, it withers.

Sarries and Quins Academy system comprises Essex, Hertfordshire, London, Kent, Sussex, Berkshire, Middlesex. Between them they have about 15 (max) full time community staff. How on earth are they supposed to do a proper search for talent in that massive area? They aren't. All they do is build close relationships with the best and most obvious rugby playing schools (mostly private). It's worked for decades and continues to do so. The RFU don't need to expand the game because they can still use this elite and very small pipeline to produce an acceptable England side and therefore fill Twickenham. Nothing else needs to be done.

My real worry is that they could probably continue with this approach if only 4 or 5 prem teams remained. With the concussion suit looming ever larger they are trying to create non-contact forms of rugby that can be played by all ages and genders. Full-contact rugby would be made redundant below elite-level and elite schools/Universities. 

Rugbychris wrote:   .... nothing else needs to be done

 

Time to change the model.

Totally agree BE - if anyone is suggesting that you could manage without a second tier without damaging the game in England overall, they are kidding themselves. There are major flaws in the Champ as it stands, but even now it serves as a pathway/bridge for players to reach the top flight, with another group leaving the Champ at the end of May to move to Prem/URC - the gap is bridgeable at present, but the bridge could end up being destroyed...

And why would the Champion Club need to be promoted? That Club has just won the top League in the Country (outside of a ring fenced Premiership facing bankruptcy and doom) so just enjoy being the best there is, like Clubs in the top league of any sport.

When we played in the Merit table, you could end up playing against the occasional International or British Lion, I know I did but, it was the introduction of the leagues in the late 1980's that removed the possibility of players at level 3 and below ever playing a Club 1stXV that contained an International player. A point I sometimes make to our players today.

I understand your sentiments and when I responded to your earlier post I deliberately did not mention funding as I believe this to be the root of the problem for most Championship Clubs as they stand today. Some Championship Clubs have always used the RFU funding as a means of paying players, a use for which it was never intended. So, when the RFU cuts the funding, those Championship Clubs struggle with their wage bill and become unsustainable at Level 2.

The Championship Clubs need to join the National Leagues and find the majority of their funding like most National League Clubs do already, from sponsorship, members & events etc. This will determine the Club's rugby budget and therefore, the true level of the Club within the league system.

Also, with the Championship Clubs in the National Leagues, the National Leagues become a more marketable product and will attract sponsorship which can be shared out responsibly.

I agree with your comments about the RFU Governing body and that the professional game will bankrupt itself, given enough time. Some posters on this forum talk about Bill Sweeney as he is the 'devil' sent to ruin our game, when all he is is a CEO (a very temporary position in todays business world) trying to market the part of a product that brings in the most income from TV & Sponsors. Sorry, but the rest of us need to face the facts that Clubs and Rugby at Level 2 and below just wont bring in the millions needed to compete with the French etc. So, we cut Bill and the Premiership free and let them get on with it.

The permanent fixtures in Rugby are the Clubs and, the people who run them. We will still be here when the Premiership comes tumbling down and the few Level 1 Clubs that survive come to us to seek entry into our League system.

The current funding level is enough to pay for an ambulance to be on standby as required by league rules, and to buy a jug of beer at the end of season party.

The Premiership clubs do use RFU money to pay players, it provides about half the salary cap.

The Prem clubs need to become Pro rugby in England.

The non Prem clubs become "open" as he describes.

In a way this is the RFU vision but trying to co-opt the Championship clubs into the closed cartel.

Or did the original poster mean 'promoted' as in congratulated, publicised and hailed as the Champions? It may be that I got the wrong end of the stick.

I think "best of the rest" is a way to understand it.

Llandovery were champions in Wales. But they're not anywhere near becoming a URC region.

That's where England is going based on my understanding.

But what the RFU fail to understand (or deliberately ignore) is the fact that these Premiership players they so badly need do not miraculously turn up at the Premiership clubs or their academies from nowhere. They come from grassroots clubs - the same grassroots clubs the RFU have abandoned.

Central contracts may eventually keep players in this country but unless the RFU suddenly regain some integrity and understand that they are supposed to represent all rugby clubs in the country such contracts would only widen the divide between the top few clubs and the rest of rugby. 

Yes that makes sense, thank you.

I meant promoted in the PR and marketing sense, not promoted to a higher league.

Let's have some razzamatazz.

Frankly, if it got coverage, I would support a play-off system and a final at Twickenham on TV.

But let's not have the situation where the RFU send the trophy in the post and let a former club president present it.

The RFU has a big Marketing operation. The Championship clubs have mixed Marketing efforts.

I could see RFU doing Marketing for the Prem II sides and that counting towards the funding of the clubs.

£150,000 for a standby Ambulance and a jug of beer! It seems expensive to live in Cambridge.

I expect the Cambridge players are playing there for the love of the Club.

About 400, and about 40 of the rest could have if the RFU had been interested enough to cap them (e.g. Matavesi, Tompkins, seemingly Gus Warr). 

Quite, TV income, success in Europe and England team winning % has all dropped since ringfecning in 2019.

I think we need to be realistic in terms of what it costs & the certainty needed to develop grounds in England. Thanks to our entirely dysfunctional planning it really can take years and 3 or 4 times the money it takes in France or USA, before we even think about the sources of that money (direct local government or local tax breaks etc).  That does, for me, mean we do need more of a safety net at some reasonable level for teams that take the risks to develop their stadiums.

I wish the RFU would openly publish their plan so I can assess it and see if it is close enough to what I want.  At the moment I don't see how anyone can say either side is right or wrong. No proposal is out there to read and critique. 

I find these figures very worrying, of the 5000 players in the prem only 400 to 500 are eligible to to play for England, staggering.

Really hope these are incorrect 

they finished 6th! 

It is interesting that in announcing today the England U20 team to play Georgia as an Under 20 World Cup warm-up, the RFU gives for each player the Premiership Club to which they are attached AND the grassroots Club they came from.

Exactly what is proposed.

Gives me a chuckle when it's a Welsh club.

It's a nice touch.

Mold are clearly doing their job for the greater good 🍺🍺

I think the point was, at least we were in a position to try and make the step up. (If that is a sensible step to take is another matter) How many Clubs entered the audit process? No wonder the RFU think that the Championship clubs have no ambition. 

Mold are clearly doing their job for the greater good 🍺🍺

I saw St Peters RFC in there for one game and thought hang on, that's in Cardiff!

Don't worry, these are definitely incorrect. 

Where did the '5000 Premiership players' number come from? That would be about the total number of every player playing from the top of the Prem all the way down to the bottom of the Nat 2 leagues! 

The more accurate figure is 500-ish depending on the associated academy sizes (if you include them) and around 80% of these 500 players are typically eligible to play for England. 

As has been publicised, squad sizes are being reduced to be more equal across the board as the likes of Bath have had around 70 on their books recently, whereas Sale and Saints closer to 50.

How many of these 500 players have played any regular rugby at Regional 1 - Champ level before being signed professionally would be interesting to know, but I'd wager very few as a % of the total (and even less % in the England squad), most would have been picked up from a select number of rugby playing schools (usually private) or university.

Although I would point out that Sarries and England reserve hooker Theo Dan bucks this trend having played for Stortford just a few seasons ago, so there are exceptions to the rule.

Didn't see cpk had responded

There are 500 players, not 5000. 50 per club. 40 are EQP, typically. 

Who does the RFU think believes any of that…. it is pure spin. Why are they not open and transparent?

For clarity re the £125k cash payment…. Circa £45k pa goes on insurance (not paid for by RFU) £65k pa goes on mandatory ambulance and medical attendance and the remaining small balance is swallowed up by the extra costs Championship level 2 Rugby entails. 

I am not complaining about Champ funding per se because the game below the Champ gets nothing but when the RFU concurs with minimum entry standards to get into the Premiership which will cost Champ clubs £millions it is beyond a joke.

There are 4 or 5 sides in the Championship that can realistically aspire to the Premiership… if I was a supporter of Coventry, Donny, Ealing , Pirates or Bedford I would be even more annoyed than I already am.

Every indication, and rumor is that Sir Mike Gooley is fed up with throwing money at the squad to chase promotion. There is still huge investment in the ground, but the team is being told to focus on using talent developed through Brunel. You also saw that Ealing didnt bother with the minimum standards audit. So it looks like the RFUs has finally managed to drive a few million pounds of investment out of the game. Well done.

It is disgraceful protectionism that should have no place in Rugby 🏉 or anywhere else as far as I am concerned.

Sid and WEvans are right level 2 and below should just vote out the current RFU Executive…. sell off Twickenham to CVC or the highest bidder and set up a new organisation to administer club rugby

There are 500 players, not 5000. 50 per club. 40 are EQP, typically. 

Context arrives.

Tomorrow's Prem final.

Bath have 4 non-EQP (5 if Gallagher has played for Italy)

Saints have 2

6 from 30 is dead on the rate of 50 per club 40 EQP.

Did it also explain why they have over the years cut funding to these clubs?

In clubhouse chat I have made reference to a very likely restructuring of the game below level 2 which I fear will lead to a round of redundancies in lower and middle management/support within the RFU. My sources tell me that there is a proposal to be voted on shortly which will see the game below level 2 divided into 6 regions. I suspect that this restructuring is in reality just cover to take further cost out of the community game to pay for the new Professional Game Agreement.

If my sources are right and I have no reason to doubt them this is another raid by the RFU/Premiership/CVC cartel to the detriment of the game as a whole.

It looks as though the Community Game is being further ransacked for the benefit of 10 clubs, CVC and the RFU Executive