Purpose of the Premiership

I'll see your Premiership and raise you the RFU and PRL.

Quite why any proper rugby club (like Caldy and Ampthill) would want to be part of the Premiership is a total mystery to me even if the disreputable and korrupt Premiership would let them in.

(I realise Caldy and Ampthill might have no desire to be in the Premiership anyway).  

I'm afraid we are all frustrated at the RFUs last minute decision making and willingness to bow to the Premiership clubs sucking so much money out of the game. If there was a clear and consistent 10 year plan, including all 2,000 clubs we'd be happier.

I'm yet to find an RFU fan on this site.

We are a broad church with a multiplicity of opinions 😎 

I am sure we all want the top division, whatever it is called, to be the pinnacle of English rugby - not Anlgo-Welsh Rugby.

All clubs should be able to be promoted, regardless of whether they play on a park pitch, like Bath - or a stadium - like Darlington. Though it would be nice if they played on a full sized pitch.

There should be no link between the position of the men's and women's sides.

No promoted club should be required to buy shares, other than for a nominal fee - that is the replacement for PRL should be a company limited by guarantee.

The clubs should not be involved in player development - that is, they should not be running academies. Those should be run regionally by the RFU.

We want it to consist of sides that can stand on their own two feet - albeit with TV money -  and not rely on funding from the RFU. Ideally, it should actually generate income for the RFU.

We want oversight to ensure sides are financially sound, accepting a side into a league and having it fail is obviously a major problem and the organizing committee should resign.

The problem is that even a slimmed down Premiership side, with a single men's side, would require a budget of about £10m to £12m.

There is no way a second tier side can generate anywhere near that until it can get a TV deal, and we cannot get that without being on TV.

So there is a need for a major marketing campaign building the lower tiers.

Tiger,

1: As I said, Bath play on a park pitch with temporary stands - so it can be done. OK some of those temporary stands have been there as long as I can remember.

The Old Deer Park was perfectly safe, but it did not meet the then standards, and they were forced to play away from their base. If it is safe for a match with 4,000 fans in the Championship, it is safe for a match with 5,000 fans in the Premiership

The safety argument, and the spacing of urinals, was used to exclude clubs. It was just on the legal side of a cartel.

If we are going to have requirements, a pitch 100 m by 70 m with 10 m or deeper in-goal areas would be top of my list. One of the reasons there is no space in Professional rugby, is the fact they all play on narrow pitches.  A 65 metre wide pitch effectively gives the defence an extra man. When was the last time the touch line missed a tackle.

2: PRL shares cost £13m. In order to get the TV money, the promoted club must buy those from the relegated club. That too is iniquitous. IF PRL was a company limited by guarantee, its shares could be valued at say £100 and the purchase would be purely nominal.

Of course, if you took £13m from the balance sheet of every Premiership club, most would look decidedly dodgy. Some are close to insolvent now - and only trading due to the willingness of the director to support them.

3: If the academies worked, England would be winning the World Cup at a canter. And would have won the last several U-19 world cups.  Also the England team would be full on academy graduates, not imports from league or abroad.

But the big problem is, what happens to the academy of the relegated team.

4: No business has guaranteed income. All businesses fail in the end. The current model is unsustainable. The only way to be successful is to be a property company with a rugby team as a marketing gimmick. Most sides rely on having a fanatical supporter - like a cecil Duckworth - who is prepared to give away several million pounds a year.

5: There is meant to be oversight. But it has become croneyism. McCafferty and Thomas both moved over from the board of England Rugby Ltd  to the premiership Rugby board.

5: One of the reasons it was unable to take advantage was it had overspent on Twickenham, on England and on the Premiership. But, because it committed far too much money to the Premiership, it is cutting Development Officers and marketing staff.

The Premiership should be the pinnacle of the English club game. Clubs with ambition should be able to reach it based solely upon their playing abilities , as what happens in Football. Automatic relegation and promotion each season at every level. 

There should be a minimal set of viable/realistic/cost effective criteria for each ground but clubs should be free to play games elsewhere if they think it would benefit them. 

The major costs are the players. The RFU should be centrally contracting the 50 or so England players - the ones you would expect to have the biggest salaries - therefore removing one of the major costs to the clubs.  

These players should then be loaned back to the Premiership clubs.  

Players not centrally contracted should not be able to play for England unless under exceptional circumstances. Players to be limited to x games per season. This could be achieved by reducing the size of the Premiership.  Squad sizes capped. 

Make more use of centrally contracted players for outreach and publicity. Clubs should be encouraged to provide educational opportunities for their players. 

RFU to restrict number of overseas players by working with Home Office on Visa conditions. The Premiership shouldn't be a home for 'journeymen' but minimum number of 'stars' allowed. 

The RFU to run regional academies in conjunction with local Universities and not the Premiership clubs. Players graduating from the Academies go into a draft system with the newly promoted club getting first pick and the champions the last in each round. 

RFU income is shared more equitable around clubs but focussed on ground improvements, player development, participation, travel costs and not on player wages. 

If the published accounts for Manchester Sale Rugby Club Limited (Sale Sharks) are an indication of the rest of the Premiership clubs I think you are substantially wide of the mark there Camquin.

Sale Shark's P shares sit in the 30 June 2021 balance sheet at £17.89 million having been revalued upwards by £3.68m in that year. According to the note in the accounts the P shares represent 0.0004% of Premier Rugby Holdco Limited...to me that seems a very, very small percentage ownership!

The impact of this revaluation was to turn a pre tax loss of £3.27m into a pre tax profit of £403k

As at 30 June 2021 Manchester Sale Rugby Limited has accumulated losses of £18.35m

At the same date of 30 June 2021 Manchester Sale Rugby Limited's balance sheet discloses net assets of £1.9m.......without the £17.89m value ascribed to the P Shares the balance sheet would look somewhat ugly!

The valuation of the P shares (benchmarked by the CVC purchase price) may well be 'holding up' the valuation of the Premiership as a whole. In most spreadsheets this would be flagged as a 'circular argument'

Without the historical long term and continuing financial support from its directors and shareholders it is unlikely that Manchester Sale Rugby Limited would still be in business.

Premier Rugby Ltd is owned indirectly by PRL Investor Limited and Cobalto Bidco which jointly own Premier Rugby Holdings LLP which owns Holdco which own PRL.

The P shares are in PRL Investor Ltd, (the clubs may also own 1 share in each of the subsidiaries - but essentially they are onion layers to separate types of ownership).

Shares in PRL Investors Ltd are not tradeable and must be held by a rugby club in the Premiership, or by the Company, except that a club relegated o the championship may hold them for up to a season.

I suspect, but have not proven, that Cobalto is the investment vehicle for CVC.

You don't support a premiership club and clearly never have, I would happily lead a revolution against such a list of ideas.

 I can only speak for Leicester Tigers, but they educate academy members, they are linked to universities, so not only are they getting the best rugby education, they also go to good local education facilities. Have a look at the current squad Tigers have, then see how many of their academy graduates are current internationals. Club players, part of a team is the only way to take a player forward, having centrally contracted players loaned is exactly what you all seem to hate on here, just the same as dual registered or loan players, no interest in the club really. What sort of club will exist with their best players missing, who the hell is going to buy a season ticket for a team that rarely has it's best players available? What sort of standard will the top league play, that is a recipe for dumbing down the club game. The RFU has shown itself to be inept from the outside and many former players have publicly criticised the way rugby is run. The obvious parallel to draw is the soccer Premiership, ask any fan of any club if they would accept their best players being grown at the club to then be taken away and rarely seen. 

The main reason England did not win the last World Cup or the last 6 Nations was not any fault of the PRL, that blame lies fairly and squarely with the RFU and their Minion Eddie Jones.