PGP analysis – Borthwick given strong hand
Analysis
Paul Rees looks at the new men’s Professional Game Partnership Gand says it’s a deal which suits the RFU more
If the devil is always in the detail, there was not a huge amount of it when the new Men’s Professional Game Partnership between the Rugby Football Union and the Premiership clubs was announced last week.
It was hailed by the RFU and Premiership Rugby as a deal that would stabilise and then transform the professional game and would also have a long-term positive impact on community rugby. In between lies the Championship and there was no word on how the significant financial gap between the top two tiers in the English game would be reduced.
The agreement is worth £33m a season for the Premiership for the first half of the eight-year deal before a profit sharing element is introduced for the second part. It is £5m more than the 2016 agreement when there were 12 sides in the top flight rather than 10 so the increase for each club is more than 50 per cent: given that there were 13 Premiership shareholders then, the percentage rise is even higher.
The Championship clubs have long been sceptical about the MPGP and there is little in it for them other than the winners of the tournament will meet the bottom Premiership side in a two-legged play-off provided it met the minimum standards criteria which, in the case of ground capacity, will be rolled over a four-year period, should promotion be achieved, to meet the 10,001 threshold.
And 10 of the clubs will be in the Premiership Rugby Cup for at least the next two seasons, but given the extra money being given to the 10 Premiership teams, why was not part of it diverted to the second tier who have been starved of central finds this decade?
Promotion and relegation will continue to be in name only unless investment is made in the second tier. The new agreement offered the chance to give the Premiership clubs an uplift while also holding some back for the Championship, something that should have been a given with the RFU recently saying its ideal was a second tier on the lines of the ProD2 in France where clubs can afford to sign the likes of Courtney Lawes.
“All parties want a viable, sustainable and valued 2nd tier that can produce clubs capable of competing in the Premiership and providing the jeopardy and competition that keeps the league vibrant,” ran a statement sent out by the RFU and the Premiership after the announcement of the agreement.
“However, there is currently a major gap in competitiveness and playing budget between the Premiership and Championship clubs and the financial requirements needed to compete in the Premiership.”
It cried out for another paragraph to explain how the two organisations intended to reduce the gap. They can say they want a viable, sustainable and valued second tier all they want, but it is not words that will bridge the divide. And it is a strange employment of the word valued when the Championship has been anything but, treated with no more consideration than chewing gum on a shoe.
When the RFU’s chief executive Bill Sweeney appeared before a Digital, Culture, Media and Sport select committee two years ago following the collapse of Worcester and Wasps, he said that one of three areas that the Union intended to look at and change was the second tier.
“It is something we have been working on anyway,” he said, “the overall structure of the professional game in terms of the Premiership but also the Championship so it links together and we have a more compelling league structure. It will help us drive additional revenue and benefits into the game.” But not quite yet.
Needless to say the Championship will not be represented on the Professional Rugby Board, the body that is replacing the Professional Game Board, although it will not be dominated by the two signatories to the agreement. The RFU and Premiership Rugby will each have three votes with the Rugby Players’ Association one.
There will be two independent members and another independent will chair the meetings. If the clubs and the RFU take opposing stances on an issue, the other three will decide. The board’s composition could be interpreted as a sign of growing trust between Twickenham and the clubs, something that will be tested in time by the provision in the agreement for an enhanced England playing squad.
There is provision for up to 25 players in the enhanced squad, all selected by the national head coach. They will be paid some £160,000 a year, replacing the appearances fees and bonuses they are currently on. “It ensures optimum preparation for key international fixtures,” the statement said, which implied something different for Test matches not regarded in the same way.
The England head coach “will have the final say on all sports science and medical matters relating to the management of the enhanced EPS players”. So if Steve Borthwick decrees, after a Six Nations campaign, that a player requires immediate surgery so he can be ready for the summer tour, ruling him out of the rest, or most of, the remainder of his club’s campaign, his decision goes.
“There will obviously be an occasion where there is disagreement,” said Sweeney. “That’s the whole purpose of the men’s professional rugby board bringing in an independent chair, so we take that to discussions there and resolve them.”
Northampton’s director of rugby Phil Dowson said: “You sometimes get guys who need an injection on a joint and might need a week or two off. If that is just before the Six Nations starts, does he miss the last club game to be available for England?
“If you start taking players out because you are saving them for England, that becomes an issue. I do not think conflict will happen very often, but it is interesting to see who they get to arbitrate how that goes.”
If the head coach has the final say on medical issues, where does the PRB or an arbitrator come into it? Do clubs have the right of appeal, in which case it is not ultimately down to the person in charge of the England team? That is currently Borthwick and he is not one to take a decision without exhaustive consultation.
It would not be fair to involve a player in the decision-making process because they would effectively be asked to choose between two employers, but enhanced status means they get paid whatever whereas previously missing England matches through injury had a cost.
Then there is the question of who will be offered enhanced status. Given the layer of skin England have shed since the World Cup, there are fewer players who could be considered automatic choices now. Jamie George as captain is one, Maro Itoje and Ben Earl are others. Alex Mitchell has become the regular scrum-half and George Furbank has taken over from Freddie Steward at full-back.
Ollie Lawrence, Ellis Genge, Ollie Chessum and Tom Curry are prime candidates, but what about those who are bedding in? Immanuel Feyi-Waboso, Chandler Cunningham-South, Tommy Freeman, Fin Smith, Fin Baxter and Ollie Sleightholme all made their debuts this year and will clearly be around for the next World Cup.
Will every position be covered in the 25? If so, which tighthead prop will be named? Some positions will have two players: who is the leading outside-half, George Ford or Marcus Smith? Similarly at openside flanker with Sam Underhill getting a run in Tom Curry’s absence?
And will the lack of a defence coach with Felix Jones handing in his notice last month have an impact on Henry Slade’s contract chances? He was the central figure in Jones’s blitz system, but the next person to fill the position may have a different take. Does Borthwick wait until his management team is complete before deciding the 25? Given the recent upheaval, and the rebuilding of the team, he is likely to work his way towards that number.
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The season starts in less than two weeks, which is presumably when the contacts would start from, although they could kick in when the squad for the November internationals is named next month. The RFU spoke for the first time about Felix Jones’ departure during the media conference covering the MPGP, but did not say whether he would be serving out his notice or why he was going just seven months after joining the management team.
It is the third agreement between country and clubs since the first was signed in 2008, ending more than a decade of feuding that enriched lawyers but soiled the image of the game. This is the closest together the two sides have come, reflecting the relationship between Sweeney and his Premiership Rugby counterpart, Simon Massie-Taylor. They worked together at the RFU and the British Olympic Association and what is different about the new agreement is that it is collaborative rather than the outcome of two sides approaching negotiations from different directions and remaining on their side of the divide, ticking off their victories.
“The sole purpose of this agreement is to try and get greater collaboration and greater balance in the game,” said Phil Winstanley, the rugby director at Premiership Rugby. “I have been around for a couple of cycles at this. The biggest difference with this one is that for the first time both sides have recognised that we genuinely have to deliver for each other.
“In previous iterations, it was about who controls what, what do you give, what do you not give. We have had open conversations with directors of rugby and clearly there are some concerns. That is the agreement we have outlined. It is for us and the PRB to make it work.”
The Premiership used to run pretty much as a cartel but the Saracens affair over salary cap breaches and a punishment that impacted on England together with the pandemic that revealed the debt burden weighing down the club game prompted a recalibration and it is now run more on business lines.
The clubs need this agreement more than before and the RFU has been able to exert an influence, albeit one that does not inhibit Premiership Rugby’s running of its tournaments. For instance, the agreement contains a commitment to implementing a salary cap formula from the 2025-26 season that will be aligned to “key financial metrics”, which will include a review of the salary cap credit system.
The cap has gone up this season from £5m to £6.4m, before various add-ons, such as credits for home-grown players. Some of the increase is absorbed by the increase in value of the new agreement, but there has been disquiet outside the game that at a time when clubs have pointed out the constraints imposed on them by having to repay government loans taken out during the pandemic when income all but dried up, the cap is rising by nearly 30 per cent.
Not that clubs have to spend up to it and they are having to contend with a rising number of players leaving for France, but a question over the cap for some time has been whether it should be the same for all or linked to turnover. The danger of the latter is that it could lead to a financial divide in the league, but it is there anyway with Newcastle spending less than anyone else, and it can be argued that it makes English clubs less competitive in the Champions Cup.
Another change heralded by the agreement is in the academy structure. Boundaries have been redefined, although the RFU will continue to operate a Yorkshire academy under the authority of the PRB. And there will be a phased approach to the development system: foundation from the ages of 15-16, development for the next two years and confirmation for 19-20 year olds. Partnerships will be established with two state schools or colleges.
“We have spent the last two years listening to all parts of the game to understand what we need for rugby to grow in the future,” said Sweeney, “how all parts interact and support each other and where we need to focus and allocate our investment for the best outcome.
“Despite the RFU having £150m revenue losses through Covid and a £30m increase in operating costs over the last four years due to inflation, we are in a stable financial position. We have now reached a significant milestone in turning our spend in the professional game into a true investment partnership with shared strategy, goals and risks.
“The England national team benefits by having control over the medical and strength and conditioning of the best players in England at the peak of their form and in the best shape to play for their country. And the community game benefits from well run and funded academies to allow every young player to fulfil their potential and winning England teams that generate money to reinvest into the whole game.”
The agreement means that the RFU will be spending a significant portion of its turnover on the Premiership and the England men’s and women’s teams. Its income is largely driven by the international game which is why the agreement is so important to it. It does not give Borthwick the control over players most of his rivals enjoy, with France the main exception, and it can again be argued that the governing body has paid too much, but the pandemic eased the way for the agreement to shift in the union’s favour.
It showed that the international game is rugby’s economic driver. Club rugby, France is again an exception, does not have the same pull, as the clubs have discovered in recent deals for the Premiership and the Champions Cup.
The loss of three clubs from the Premiership suits the RFU as a 10club league minimises the clashes between club and international rugby and so reduces the chances of conflict. It is a deal that in its essence suits the RFU more, but the clubs need the extra money.
It gives the clubs the chance to tap into the RFU’s fan database with the crossover between international and club crowds alarmingly low. And, doubtless down to the RPA, there will be mandatory rest periods for all current internationals in the Premiership, not just those who play for England.
The main blemish is the lack of provision for the Championship. The agreement itself means the financial gap between the two divisions will grow even wider. The professional game in England should not be an island.
