Taking an axe to Premiership funding would earn RFU boss Bill Sweeney applause from the community game, says Berkshire RFU and Rams Rugby chairman Andy Lynch.
Grassroots clubs and counties have borne the brunt of savage RFU cutbacks, both pre-Covid-19 and since lockdown, while the RFU’s £27.5m-a-year deal with Premiership Rugby has remained untouched, provoking anger at lower levels of the game.
Buckinghamshire’s Rugby Union last week launched a scathing attack on senior management at the RFU in an open letter which accused the governing body of allowing a ‘professional big brother to soak up the majority of funding and support efforts from the RFU’, before citing a ‘70 per cent cut in funding and support staff that puts the future of smaller clubs at risk’.
Lynch says community clubs must stand on their own two feet, but shares the concerns of his county neighbours that the pain of financial cutbacks is not being evenly shared, his belief being that money paid to England players should also be reviewed.
Lynch, whose Rams side finished second in National One, told The Rugby Paper: “I wouldn’t come at it from quite the same angle as Buckinghamshire because if your first reaction is to put your hand out and say, ‘What are you going to give me?’, you’re not going to get far.
“As community clubs we need to look after ourselves and be more proactive in engaging our communities and sponsors. But having said that, let’s make a lot of noise about the fact there should also be cuts in the professional game and we should support RFU chief executive Bill Sweeney to tell Premiership Rugby, ‘Take it or leave it’.
“He’s got to get the RFU’s profit and loss right so he should be saying to PRL, ‘You’re not going to get your full money, you’re going to get what we can afford now and if that means you want to walk away and not release your England players, so be it’.
“The RFU must remember that from the bulk of rugby supporters, there are more people playing, watching or involved in community rugby than the Premiership, so Sweeney needs to be tough and make it clear that every club within the whole rugby organisation needs to stand on their own two feet, from the top to the bottom.
“If Sweeney came out and said he’s going to take on PRL and reduce their payments each year because he has to to get the RFU back in shape financiarflly, the majority of support across the country will say ‘hooray’.”
Lynch believes too much Premiership money is going into the pockets of overseas players, adding: “Why have we got so many foreign players and coaches at the top of the game when there’s so much untapped talent at local levels?
“The answer is if you’re throwing money at it, that’s what’s going to happen, so the whole structure of Premiership Rugby needs looking at afresh.”
England players currently being paid £25,000 a game should not be immune to financial pain either, says Lynch.
“Supposedly everyone’s in this together, so if you take a pay-cut are you suddenly not going to play for your country?
“If you cut the England fee by 50 per cent, are you telling me they’re all going to walk away? They won’t like it and there’ll be a massive fight, but things have got out of control and Bill Sweeney’s time in charge of the RFU will be defined by what he does next.”
NEALE HARVEY
