In December last year Tom Ilube stepped down as chair of the Rugby Football Union (RFU) for England. He said that this was because ‘recent events have become a distraction from the game’. Some rugby fans thought he kept rather a low profile as chair, but there was more to these recent events than that.
The RFU chief executive Bill Sweeney was paid £742,000 for the year to June 2024, plus a bonus of £358,000, intended to make up for salary cuts during Covid. But all was not well in the governing body or in the sport more widely. The RFU had operating losses of nearly £38m and proposed to make over forty staff redundant as part of ‘restructuring’ (a standard employers’ euphemism). There have been plenty of calls for Sweeney to resign too, and some member clubs tried to call a special general meeting with a vote of no confidence in him. This was declared invalid on bureaucratic grounds, but the RFU later changed their position and agreed to hold the special meeting, but not until March at the earliest.
The RFU’s income derives from match day and event income at the England home ground of Twickenham, plus broadcast revenue, and now a massive amount from insurance company Allianz for naming rights at the stadium. But World Cup years mean fewer matches there, so smaller income.
And lower levels of the game are suffering. The Community Clubs Union says there has been a big increase in walkovers, where one club is unable to field a team, and a lack of match officials. Lost financial support from the centre plays a large part in these problems. The CCU says it intends to be ‘an independent voice of the clubs and community game’. This would mean, for instance, more equitable funding between professional and community rugby.
Back in December a BBC reporter visited Finchley Rugby Club in North London. They run three teams, fewer than in previous years, and, like other similar clubs, they play a major role in introducing young people to play the sport. As the chair says, ‘the support base for national rugby is at grassroots clubs. They’re the people who will get the international tickets and watch it on TV. This is where kids fall in love with the game.’ Grants from the RFU have been cut, and the fear is that redundancies at the centre will have a big impact on local clubs. At Finchley most of those who help out are volunteers and sponsorship is mostly in kind, rather than financially.
As so often under capitalism, those at the top do very nicely, while those lower down, whether at the centre or at local level, struggle to get by and exist on precarious terms.
Paul Bennett
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