The Championship

Paul Rees has suggested that the future model of the Championship should be purely semi professional with clubs operating on a "pay as you play" basis.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2020/apr/14/richmond-may-be-sustainable-model-for-the-future-of-championship-rugby

Would this inevitably lead to ring fencing or the end of promotion and relegation?

I think there will be ringfencing regardless.

iknow there are huge pro and cons, but i just think its already set in motion and the announcement is inevitable.

The RFU has effectively backed the Premiership A league as the second tier competition with its decision to cut Championship funding. The RFU has effectively sold the Championship down the river.

The Championship now needs to go to semi pro in the short term and then look to take their television rights into their own hands because I believe it was the RFU decision to sell those TV rights to Sky where no one sees the coverage. Those rights need to be sold to free to air TV so that people can start to see their local sides regularly. Regular TV coverage available to more homes would help get sponsors and sports mad kids who don't have access to sports coverage behind the paywall could be turned in to rugby.

The Championship will have some grim years ahead. I'm still angry by the spectacularly narrow view of the RFU. The Championship allegedly provides no player to England which is incredibly dumb when a large number of the current England squad have played in the Championship albeit on loan. Anyway rant over.

It's an interesting article and good to see Richmond back in the Championship.

The hardest hit by what now seems inevitable ring fencing will be established Championship clubs Cornish Pirates, Bedford, Nottingham, Jersey, Ealing and Coventry who have developed their infrastructure a lot over the last few years.

What Pirates have done without the funding that member clubs get is outstanding. It's a very professional set-up these days with a fantastic coaching staff.

A club like Hartpury offers a conveyor belt of brilliant players getting their first exposure to professional rugby. Will Hartpury's set-up put them in a position to be promoted? No it doesn't. Playing at Championship level with a regularly changing and young squad is a great achievement for the them though and offers vital exposure to high level rugby for a lot of young players.

I hope that Doncaster develop their set-up more over the next few years as Yorkshire desperately needs representation in the higher leagues.

All in all I see ring fencing as a negative thing that will harm the quality of the Premiership and Championship in the long term.

I can't understand why the RFU would go with the A league. Young players learn alot more playing against older wiser players in the championship rather than a training league that the players and fans don't care about.

Even in Ireland where the club league would be much lower level of rugby even compared to the lowest championship team, they still send the kids to play in it. The kids learn to play in front of hostile crowds and against stronger and smarter (but not more skillful) players. It's why in soccer the stars of the u23 league rarely make it at the top compared to the players who go out on loan to get real experience.

All that is needed now is a Yorkshire club and you will have the 14 regions to compete at the professional level with the club game underneath.

Brendan wrote:I can't understand why the RFU would go with the A league. Young players learn alot more playing against older wiser players in the championship rather than a training league that the players and fans don't care about.

Ah you see that's simple. Money. The Prem clubs don't want any extra funding to run the A league so the RFU can reasonably slash the Championship budget but retain the top end pay of their managers and directors instead of making internal cuts at the top to meet budget. Got to have the prawn sandwiches and champagne on match days.

Just look at the RFU plans for the international season next year, they want to crow bar the Japan tour into the calendar before the Autumn Internationals. Does this benefit England fans or England players? Nope of takes England players away from their clubs for another three weeks and away from live action locally viewable. Just a money making scheme as the RFU have lost money hand over fist during the Covid pandemic. Sod player safety.

The Championship is one of the best finishing schools for young talent going. I think England, Scotland and Wales all have players in their international squads who have development time in the Championship. It's stupidity of the highest level to devalue that league but as I say the RFU are more focused on the cash.

Where is the money for the Womens Premier 15 coming from?

Surely there is no money left over for this.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/52774133

More on the Chmpionship struggles...

Intersting that none of them are aware of this KPI for producing Egnland players...

https://www.therugbypaper.co.uk/features/columnists/36763/harrington-column-takeovers-big-moves-life-goes-on-in-pro-d2/

Meanwhile the French ProD2 is going from strength to strength. The RFU folly of ditching the support of the Championship which is still in very early days of development will be looked back on with dismay. I hope the Championship draw up their own FTA tv deal with bbc2 or channel4 - that would turn a few heads....

Some Unions have gone for a centralised top down elite approach with minimal interest in developing participation for either players or fans. This is a finite strategy which when coupled with incorrect management decisions culminates in huge risk. Australia are further down that trajectory than some but others won't be far behind.

England and France with population size, have no excuse not to have 24+ senior clubs with diversified ownership. France however are leaving England behind with their domestic scene, despite England having a far more even geographic spread of historic clubs throughout the land and thus avoiding competing for the same new fans.

TightHEAD wrote:Where is the money for the Womens Premier 15 coming from?

Surely there is no money left over for this.

Tyrells have cancelled their sponsorship this week....

Ligue 2 average attendance 6,784.
Football Championship average attendance 18,585.
That's the easy answer to why England won't have a competitive second division.

Look at the competition the Rugby championship face

Irish Londoner wrote:

TightHEAD wrote:Where is the money for the Womens Premier 15 coming from?

Surely there is no money left over for this.

Tyrells have cancelled their sponsorship this week....

The RFU won't let it fold. If you've got a woman's team as part of your club you are able to get a lot more RFU funding. They've been pushing the women's game in a big way. It'll be considered more important than the Championship. They need a good TV deal for the competition really, if they could sell the rights to BBC or ITV that would give them more exposure and increase the chance of better sponsorship deals.

On a wider level I do think the financial hit from CV19 will make it easy to go to a ring fenced model if that is what the powers that be want.

Worst case scenario is that you are looking at creating a league from the pro clubs that are still standing.

Does the difference between England and France down to the history of their structures.  While the Premiership and Championship (both 1987) are older than the Pro14 (Celtic League 2001) they don't have the History of the Top14 (1892).  The Pro D2 was only brought in in 2000 but is run by the French equivalent of the PRL.

It is interesting to see the different approaches to funding taken by both countries to fund the team that comes up.  They French currently have 30 teams in the top 2 divisions and are open in their plans to create a third.  The French Clubs also seem to be much more apart of the town than English Clubs but that could be down to culture.

The PRL haven't looked to grow the second divison (and have activity sought to hinder them) and so have ended up making less teams viable. If you look at how many teams in the Pro D2 are known to European fans  from years gone by, while few outside England would have heard of the Championship sides.

There are many articles about players who winning the T14 was the greatest thing they ever could do in life. One player told of him bringing the trophy to his dad in his car.

The Championship competition (not the clubs) is owned by the RFU, not the PRL.
The thirteen members of the PRL are still in the process of building their balance sheets. It appears on here, some don't understand the difference with an annual P&L. So the PRL simply don't have the resources currently to spread thinner the revenue streams to a wider group of clubs.

Football in France has less influence, particularly in the South West and Atlantic coast generally, which is where most of the clubs reside. If you look at the sides in the Championship, it is not a coincidence that many do not have a significant football presence in these towns either but these are relatively small towns. That is an issue which could be addressed using FTA tv but the RFU appear to have washed their hands of any support or direction for the Championship clubs.
Disappointing but perhaps not surprising as most Unions remain focused on elite level , many as owners, and pay relative lip service to the various other tiers of the game.

I know the PRL don't own the Championship.  The LNR ran the T14 and then expanded it to take in the ProD2 in 2000.  The PRL since taking over the Premership do not seem to have had the same desire to bring on the lower clubs.  Instead of bring them under the PRL umbrella in the early 2000s like the French, they instead have put up barriers to disadvantage the promoted team and have not looked to grow its members but rather tried to ringfence their current number.  While soccer may be bigger in England than France I am sure they have other things they must compete with.

As you said the RFU has not known what to do with but that in part is due to the glass ceiling that is between the Premership and Championship.

It is true that the PRL don't have the extra money to spend but that is more likely due to bad choices 15-20 years ago.  For the last 5 years all that has been reported is that if one of the 13 members where to go bust then the PRL could just ringfence their product.  Why would people invest in smaller teams in the Championship knowing that they aren't wanted.

Some assumptions made are pretty big leaps.
You assume the RFU would have happily handed control of the Championship to the PRL, why? You assume that Championship sides have the same infrastructure as French D2 teams with their municipal stadiums, how ? You assume rugby in the SW of France has a meaningful team sports competitor for the fans Euros, what is it?

The PRL is far from perfect, in the same way Unions owning multiple teams is not ideal either. There are various conflicts either way.

Handball, basketball, cycling and Judo would all be considered big enough in France. If French Rugby was so much bigger than in England you would expect player numbers, clubs etc to be much higher but they are about the same. Maybe the French just like to watch rather than playing but I don't know if that is true.
The T14 and Premership get simillar attendances as each other at about 14k. The Pro D2 gets 5k while the Championship gets 3k so it's not like the Pro D2 clubs are massive clubs. TV deals are probably bigger if you are offering two divisions.

The Pro D2 was also planned out so I am sure if the PRL looked to have two 10 team divisions they could have found backers for 8 more clubs. Off the top of my head Ealing and Pirates would be able to do it. If Richmond were assured of not being relegated for 3 years I am sure their alumni could have put a plan together. The guy behind Jersey might have been more interested as would the SRU if invited to fund London Scottish.

Would it not be more benefial for the PRL if the top say 4/6 teams of the Championship were to be put in with the A teams of the Premiership, where late developers could be picked up. It would also provide meaningful games for young players. It at least provides some chance of developing a few more professional clubs. Having the PRL B teams as the second Teir of Rugby makes it alot harder to create any new teams as you would have to run two teams effectively and also find about 50/60 new professionals from the amateur game.

With the changes England will have 12-14 professional teams as the A league will result in ring fencing in a few years. With simillar playing number France will have 30 professional clubs. Or double the number of opportunities to be a professional player. With the A teams being mainly u23s the PRL will either need to bring in a cap on the number of NEQ players or England's professional home based players could be only 1.5/1.75 that of Ireland.

As the RFU caved to the PRL on the A league I can't see the RFU being upset if the PRL had taken over the Championship and had a playoff between the winners of ND1 and the bottom professional team.

Simple thing is the PRL want to only be 13 teams,I (Some might argue they really want 12) and their actions imply they don't want any more than those clubs being the professional teams in England.

Completely agree ring fencing is coming, which I totally disagree with as the wrong approach for any sport.

Yes the PRL should encompass the Championship sides but and whilst you dont see it, the RFU has invested an enormous amount of time and effort to create effective pathways into these Championship and regional leagues - the scale is just enormous. They are not going to bin that either now or in the future.

The PRL teams do their own thing with academies and cherry pick any established Championship players with the athletic size to potentially sustain a professional career. Not sure where you get your NEQ stats from, as the PRL have an objective for 70% minimum EQ squads which they all pretty much achieve - the Bath short term target is 50% EQ minimum moving from academy to professional squad members, which they are always pretty close to. The standard club issue is not having enough players with Test experience.

Not sure the sports quoted actually challenge SW French rugby, but fair enough.
The Championship side have virtually no balance sheet assets which makes promotion a challenge and with no PR promotion or exposure to better sides it has become a vicious circle. The RFU duty is to break that and they haven't.

My point on the professional players is that currently there are about 20 teams in England where you have a chance to make a professional living while still meeting the high professional standards off the pitch. The 14 academies produce most of the young players coming through.  Young players are cut each year from those academies and the Premership squads who find homes in the Championship where they grow and develop and can pick up Premership contracts a few years later.  If the Championship goes semi-pro those players get jobs and move on with life because while they might play in the Championship, the gap would be to big to get back to the Premership standard.

This would mean that every player cut from a Premership club would either need to be replaced by a young player or more likely be brought in from overseas.  While the Premiership might currently have 70% EQ with the Championship becoming semi pro either the standards will have to drop at the squad level as there are less people to fill squad player roles or the % of EQ players would have to drop.  Most Premiership clubs if they had the choice now between a Currie Cup/Mitre 10 or championship player they would probably go with the import.  When the Championship is semi-pro it won't even be a choice. The other way it could happen is that the squads get bigger to fill the A league and the 70% stays the same but none EQ are a higher % of the Premership squad players while all the A league is EQ.

Irish players who get let go by the irish provinces either pick up a contract in the Championship or Pro D2. If they can't, they move on with their life.  With the Championship going the Pro D2 will become the only gig in town where teams will still have at least 50% French players.  Unless the Premiership changes their squad rotation policy the English players looking for contracts in France might not have much Premership game time competing against players who might have 20 Pro14 games.  Who will a club be more likely to sign.

So Ireland only has 4 teams but the squads are very much IQ with very few top Quaility NIQ. England are currently 70% but in my opinion that % will drop in order to maintain the standards of the 12 teams.

But I guess what is done is done.