Yeah, on the new Professional Game Board/uneasy-African-style-coalition-government-of-national-unity that was set up, the RFU have four votes and Premier Rugby have four votes with the Professional Rugby Players' Association (PRA) having one. The body representing the ND1 Clubs have no vote whatsoever.
I don't like the idea either. I'd rather that the RFU hold a 4th autumn international and donate the money to Premier Rugby to bail out those clubs who aren't financially capable of continuing.
The problem here is that both parties are trying to bankrupt the other. Premier Rugby locked the RFU into a steep and expensive set of payments in exchange for player release to the tune of £88 million over the course of
eight years, far outrunning any existing sponsorship or television rights contract that the RFU currently have with O2 and Sky. Not only that but when you include the add ons, this could total a whopping £100 million to the clubs over eight years. On top of that, Premier Rugby have to be consulted and have to agree to any extra international matches or new international competitions. So if a load of oil rich Arab states turn up and offer the Six Nations £500 million to go play an extra load of Six Nations matches in Abu Dhabi, Premier Rugby could veto and scupper the entire thing.
On the flip side, the RFU gained from the deal the ability to force a Union takeover of
any failing club. If Bristol went bust tomorrow, the RFU would be well within their rights to step in and take over the running of the club.
This is crazy, absolutely unattainable and indefensible by either the RFU or Premier Rugby and both parties should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves. At a time when Clubs are losing £25 million a year and the RFU is seeing collapsing ticket and hospitality sales, we're going to end up with a nuclear winter in English Rugby..
EDIT: And now the biggest and possibly the most financially astute Union of them all, the RFU themselves, has announced that it expects a
£10 Million budget shortfall next year.
This is insane. Absolutely insane. Both sides are starting to lose money hand over fist, things are getting desperate and yet they still insist on petty politicking, clauses which bleed each other dry and general pathetic BS.
This is official. I have lost confidence in the ability of Baron, McCafferty, Wray, Barwell, Walkinshaw, the Leicester mafia and anyone else involved in this bloody fiasco to run the game in England in a way bordering sensible.
If I had my way and if I were Prime Minister, I'd nationalise the sport and sack the whole lot of them. Consequences be damned. I'd move the RFU's HQ to St Helens, hand over the administration to the RFL and I'd move (at gunpoint is neccessary) all the GP clubs to somewhere small, pathetic and generally rubbish within their own catchment area.
So Northampton would become "Corby", Saracens..er.."Watford", London Irish "Grimsby ZANU-PF Zimbabweans", Wasps..."Wasps"...Sale "Widnes", Bath "Yeovil" and so on.
So, so, so very angry at the moment
