Sponsorship deal will really help grassroots
JEFF PROBYN
A FRONT ROW VIEW OF THE GAME
THE news that the cabbage patch is to get a name change which will ensure increased funds for the grassroots game for at least four years, has to be a really good thing.
The new deal between the RFU and Allianz to change the name of Twickenham Stadium to the Allianz Stadium is a small price to pay for the funding it will provide for the grassroots over the coming years and will be fundamental in helping the game to grow.
With all the current money flooding out of the RFU in support of the professional game through the PGP and the new hybrid players contracts, it's good to see a sum guaranteed and available for the grassroots of the game which over the past few years has really struggled to survive.
Unlike the last financial promise from the RFU to the game that available funding would be split 50-50 between the professional game and the grassroots clubs, which was broken within a few months because of reduced profits, the financial foundations of the present scheme appear to be solid with Allianz responding directly to club applications to fund projects.
Allianz already have a long term relationship with the women's game in England supporting the Premiership women's rugby and the RFU women's grassroots programme, the Allianz Inner Warrior, which encourages girls and women to get into the sport.
In some ways this is an ideal time for Allianz to invest in the name change of Twickenham stadium with the Women's Rugby World Cup to be staged in England next year with the final being staged at the stadium, and the England team being the favourites to win.
I know it's a strange way of thinking but I think the stadium never really had a name until now, as it was a stadium built on a cabbage patch in Twickenham, so if asked where you were playing your game today you would either say; the cabbage patch or simply the Twickenham stadium.
Twickenham has always been the main financier of the game with the stadium at the heart of that by staging matches or concerts thereby providing the life blood of our sport, ambition.
With every player's dreams, whether as an inter national playing for your country, or a player playing for your club in a cup final or a club or county game, the ambition was and is to play at the home of the game, which is now the Allianz Stadium.
The newly named Allianz Stadium will take that place and help fund the rebirth and growth of our game at all levels. Just one thing to remember, when you get your taxi to the autumn inter nationals, make sure you say the Allianz Stadium Twickenham or you could end up at Saracens in Allianz Park now known as StoneX Stadium.
