Gareth Thomas MP calls for fair funding in the Premiership

1) Is Gareth Thomas right?

2) Is this a legitimate topic for the MP for Harrow? His agenda is clearly to do with London Welsh so what has that to do with him? Apologies if I am missing something here.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/rugbyunion/club/9958470/Premiership-Rugby-chief-hits-back-at-Aviva-Premiership-cartel-claims-from-Gareth-Thomas-MP.html

It would be nice to see a break down of the figures to determine how big the funding difference is. Somewhere between £800k and £2.1M I'm guessing.

•Each club gets B shares
•Every club gets five A shares for every year they are in the Premiership.
•Clubs get a maximum of 40 A shares after six years
•P shares, worth 25% of income, only given to 13 clubs.


so to get equal funding as an established team takes 6 years, and £5 million to but the p shares (and only if a club has to sell in that time, if they don't then it could take forever.

Well 'e ain't wrong is 'e?

When Exeter were promoted two years ago, chairman Tony Rowe hit out at what he described then as "an old boys' club", branding the differential in payments as "disgusting".

I bet 'e aint singing from the same song sheet now that 'e's got 'g bleedin' P share.

To be honest I don't think the Premiership is anywhere near fair, the top clubs have way to much on an advantage that the like of LW every staying in th eprem are very very slim, Exeter really swam against the tide to do it, and earned more respect from me when I saw how much it was stacked against them.

Don't follow any prem team much, but believe the big clubs have stacked things to much in thier favour.

However I don't think it has anything to do with Gareth Thomas or politics, MP's like to get on issues that they believe will win them votes, Gareth Thomas for LW and that Welsh one for the Ponty region. It should be LW raising it with the RFU, not an MP in Parlament

Kingshu wrote:•Each club gets B shares
•Every club gets five A shares for every year they are in the Premiership.
•Clubs get a maximum of 40 A shares after six years
•P shares, worth 25% of income, only given to 13 clubs.


so to get equal funding as an established team takes 6 years, and £5 million to but the p shares (and only if a club has to sell in that time, if they don't then it could take forever.

But how much is the difference in money? ?At least 25% + whatever the A shares are worth compared with B shares. What happens to the demoted team's A shares? Do they lose 5 for every year out of the Premiership? Do we want to keep parachute payments?

Kingshu wrote:To be honest I don't think the Premiership is anywhere near fair, the top clubs have way to much on an advantage that the like of LW every staying in th eprem are very very slim, Exeter really swam against the tide to do it, and earned more respect from me when I saw how much it was stacked against them.

Don't follow any prem team much, but believe the big clubs have stacked things to much in thier favour.

However I don't think it has anything to do with Gareth Thomas or politics, MP's like to get on issues that they believe will win them votes, Gareth Thomas for LW and that Welsh one for the Ponty region. It should be LW raising it with the RFU, not an MP in Parlament

It's arguable and a moot point Kingshu.

It could be argued that it's not the top clubs in the Jeff that caused the problem, but the bottom clubs within the cartel that have enforced virtual sea anchors on the fleetest ships to prevent them sailing away.

greytiger wrote:Well 'e ain't wrong is 'e?

When Exeter were promoted two years ago, chairman Tony Rowe hit out at what he described then as "an old boys' club", branding the differential in payments as "disgusting".

I bet 'e aint singing from the same song sheet now that 'e's got 'g bleedin' P share.

I think you'll find he most certainly is, GT, cos Exe had to borrow to buy Leeds' P-shares

Well 'e still ain't wrong then is 'e?
The PRL is and always was a creepy and insidious anti-competitive organisation though.

greytiger wrote:Well 'e ain't wrong is 'e?

When Exeter were promoted two years ago, chairman Tony Rowe hit out at what he described then as "an old boys' club", branding the differential in payments as "disgusting".

I bet 'e aint singing from the same song sheet now that 'e's got 'g bleedin' P share.

Even after buying the P shares
Rowe is unhappy that a club promoted to the Premiership who has not been part of the top flight before, such as Exeter or London Welsh, are not given the same money as the other clubs in the league.

"I think it's wrong, at the end of the day we have to give 100% of the advertising space to the Premiership advertisers as part of the sponsorship deal but we were only getting, until we purchased the P shares, less than half the income of the other clubs," he said.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/rugby-union/19785431


Leeds even agree

"Without the share holding, it makes it extremely difficult to gain parity with the other teams in the Premiership and for our long term future we must retain the ability to buy back the P shares," said Leeds chief executive Gary Hetherington.

From Gareth Thomas's website "His hobbies include running, rugby union and supporting Harrow Borough Football Club, Wealdstone Football Club and Arsenal Football Club." Sounds like he's more interested in the other sport than rugby - if he has to go and support three wendyball teams every week.
I think the rules are protectionist but for a very good reason, if you think of the financial turmoil that followed the change to professional rugby, the clubs that survived that wanted to make sure that they had some form of financial security - hence the bulk of the clubs funding being tied up in shares and the EQP payments from the RFU.
The other option is to split the money equally each season and do away with the salary cap, assuming that we'd all be happy with Leicester/Quins/Saracens being the top three teams in perpetuity or until one of the others get a Manchester City style investor to break into the top group - either the virtual sea anchors provide stability for a league to exist or we go into FA Premiership mode of money makes money and devil take the hindmost.
Of course when the realistic chances of winning the Premiership/HEC consists of six teams from England and France stuffed full of SH imports and the home nations are unable to produce a decent stream of talent, then at least the competition comission will be happy.

To be honest, all vitriol ought to be rightfully spewed at the Tigers.

Saints and Quins have both been relegated and rebounded.

And Sarries represent the nearest thing to

until one of the others get a Manchester City style investor to break into the top group

I wounldn'r blame Tigers for this or single out any club.

As Irish Londoner said it added stality to the league whe it needed it, without ringfencing it, so the Championship clubs would still be able to get to the top table.

But now the league is established, it should be a case of evening it up, or ringfencing it, because currently it is pretty much ringfenched in all but name, the P and A shares make it difficult for a team to come up for the first time, and make it easier for a relagated team to return, hence it will eventually lead to the same few years yo yoing each year, while th eother championship teams have little chance of making the Prem (having to beat a team that will prob have P and A shares that goes down to the championship) and a harder time to stay there.

It seams silly that a team like Exeter still don't recieve funding on a par of some others (in A-shares), and if Leeds didn't have to sell their P shares (ie if they had gone up instead of LW there wouldn't be a team that had to sell) they would still be further behind.

To be honest is it time to ringfence the Prem? It nearly is anyway.

It is ring-fencing in all but name. Oh but hang on, that's what McCafferty slags the Rabo off for #awkward #hypocrisy

Ringfencing may be the answer or the other option would be to actually have a properly funded second division (maybe the highly paid BT deal could fund it) so that the financial consequences of relegation are more cushioned and the financial consequences of promotion (having to get more expensive players) are cushioned - especially as we will see a few "yo-yo" clubs.
Of course the Premiership clubs will do this in the true rugby spirit.

They need to be careful what they wish for. The TV money & EPS payments are all put into the pot. It could be argued that the EPS payments should go with the players and the TV money should be split on appearances, also the sponsorship could be split where they come in the league

From a funding point of view, I guess Tony Rowe wasn't very happy when LW ran a coach and horses through the entry Requirements. We had to bring Sandy Park up to the minimum requirements before the play-off finals or we would have been denied entry to the AP. This involved upgrading our already excellent floodlights, installing urinals with a specific distance between each one, ensuring no spectator was more than a specified distance from these and drink/food outlets etc. etc. etc. We were fortunate enough to have a board who were able to financially manage this. Having gained entry the reality of lower funding could have derailed our Prem journey but again the board managed to sort the money needed. Including a doubling of my season ticket price! We've taken a punt on purchasing the P shares as they appear to offer a good return on investment, which will help to get us towards parity quicker than natural progression would. We'll still not get there until we've passed the number of years need to gain a full share holding though.

Oi Lads...!

Where were all your opinions on the unfairness of the Premiership when I was pointing this out earlier in the season...?

I was lambasted pillar to post for describing Top clubs as the "have's and have nots...!"

I am very glad to see some straight talking regarding the Premiership.

Worcester and Exeter are in different ways exemplary in their journeys to the Jeff.

But they got to the destination with concrete results.