Jeff Probyn’s column: So, is the ‘Old Boys’ Club’ in control of rugby again?

Training camps, past managers views and the World Cup have taken the focus off the biggest decision the game faces in the very near future, whether or not to ring fence?
It may be that the Premiership thinks that by changing the phrase ‘ring fence’ to ‘moratorium’ will make it easier to convince everyone that it is a good idea.
There has been a change in what had been suggested with the ring fence, to now encompass the ‘whole professional’ game.
Talks have taken place between Premiership CEO Mark McCafferty and the Championship clubs suggesting that a ring fence should surround both the professional leagues.
Any moratorium put in place by the Premiership would also hope to include the Championship stopping promotion from the national leagues, which could have a domino effect down the entire league structure.
The idea of ring-fencing the two professional leagues has been muted before as a serious step to limit the professional game and save clubs a fortune – but as the game was sold leagues on a promise of no barriers, it quickly disappeared.
Admittedly, reverting to the old pre-league system where a select group of clubs could effectively dictate who they played against could solve a lot of problems for any number of clubs that are overstretching themselves in a bid to get promoted.
A moratorium would help the clubs in the Championship that rely on Premiership teams for a number of their players,  as it would enable them to win the league without the worry of promotion. The worry of promotion sounds silly but it may result in the dual contract players having to be replaced with ‘bought in’ players and increase the costs to the clubs.
It would also remove the fear of relegation from the Championship clubs, which is just as real as that experienced by the Premiership, although nobody ever talks or writes about it.
Relegation for a Championship club is in fact in some ways worse, because it could mean changing from a full time professional team to part-time as a minimum, as the loss of the RFU grant, although not anywhere near Premiership levels, makes a massive difference.
Championship clubs also have to manage without the protection of a parachute payment and that doesn’t help keep players’ jobs safe.
When a club is relegated most will have to restructure the playing squad, even if they have ambitions of ‘bouncing back’ and that ‘restructuring’ usually includes getting rid of expensive players.
That’s one of the reasons that Championship players have called on the players’ union (RPA) to give them the same, or similar, level of help as they do Premiership players.
The thing is, given that leagues were put in place for the 1987/88 season with promotion and relegation and have been fundamental in improving the standard of the club game over the subsequent 28 years, even if during that time there have been some big-name casualties, why change now?
Of that first 12-team Premiership, six (Coventry, Moseley, Nottingham, Orrell, Bristol and Waterloo) have suffered varying falls in status and some have yet to recover.
While Northampton, Saracens, Exeter, Newcastle, London Irish and Worcester have taken advantage of what leagues offered and reached the top of the club game, the Premiership.
If ring-fencing or even a moratorium had been put in place during those early years, it is highly probable that a number of the current big investors in the club game would not have chosen to invest and clubs like Saracens and Newcastle etc. would still be languishing down the leagues.
The Premiership already has a massive advantage in terms of finance that allows them to improve facilities and buy players from all over the world to improve their teams, funded in part by the RFU.
Such advantage has allowed PRL to agree ground criteria which quite frankly, many of them never had when the leagues were created,  making it difficult and expensive for any club that makes the grade nowadays on the field to actually get promoted.
Whilst the Premiership state that the ground capacity rules of a minimum 10,000 seats are to allow for the future growth of the game, the same is not true for the Championship.
Last season saw an average of just under 12,000 fans per Premiership game with clubs like Leicester averaged 22,000, while clubs like Sale around 6,654.                                                                           However, with the Championship clubs averaging around just about 1,500 per game why would they build stadia with seating capacities of 10,000-plus?
All this would seem to indicate that a ring-fence would be something I’d be in favour of but nothing could be further from the truth.
The only country that has a league system in sport without promotion and relegation is America where none of its professional sports have relegation. In other words, there is no league structure, just, in effect, one league in each sport.
If you have a proper league structure there must be a way for teams to make the transition from the bottom to the top and the only way is promotion and relegation. In the days before leagues, rugby was a stagnated affair with clubs restricting access to fixtures and keeping the sport like an ‘Old Boys’ Club’ for the chosen few.
As the majority of the Premiership clubs are owned by rich backers who, it seems want to guard their investment by excluding access to others, it would appear that after a 20-year moratorium the ‘Old Boys’ Club’ is back in business.