Oh RFU, what have you done?
November 12 2008
It must be pathological. It must be some instinctive thirst for acrimony and dramatic late-night meetings. After all, when you've spent so long brokering peace with the same person so many times, why on earth would you go and provoke them again a mere three months later?
Perhaps the RFU still feel like they need to mark out a little territory. Perhaps now the clubs have proved, time and time again, that they really are the lifeblood of the English game, the RFU needs to throw out a little dictatorial policy just to remind everyone of their existence.
Just as peace had settled on English rugby, forward comes the English governing body and announces plans for what appears, at first glance, to be a thoroughly ill-timed and irresponsible attempt to professionalise England's second tier, the National Division One. It appears that at second glance too. And third.
For the record, the National Division One is currently sixteen teams strong, nearly all of whom are semi-professional. The RFU's plan is to reduce this number to twelve, but to have all of the dirty dozen running as fully professional outfits by the start of next season.
The other four will... not run as fully professional outfits, will not be in National Division One any more, and any aspirations they had of using their squads and local catchments to get them to the Guinness Premiership will be set back by decades as they struggle with the shock. All the efforts they have made in getting to where they are, will be rendered null and void, in one swift stroke.
Funding is supposed to come from the RFU (the least they could do) and from Sky TV. So far, so good.
In a curious mathematical coincidence though, 12, the number of clubs who would be in the new Championship (a Premiership and Championship... you'd think the RFU could do better than copy soccer for goodness' sake), is precisely the number of clubs in the current 16-team division that has voted against the new proposal.
Why? Well, this is the plan for next season. Not in a couple of years' time, not at a time mutually acceptable for all and in which all the current clubs can plan to achieve it in, but in nine short months, a ludicrous timescale.
The RFU was kind enough to give the clubs an opt-out if they felt the clubs couldn't manage it in time (if they felt they couldn't raise the financial security, basically). 'All clubs have the choice' they say. If the clubs do not want to take part, the next-best placed club is given the option. To put it another way, if the sword is too sharp, the clubs will have the chance to choose to fall on it. How kind.
First Division Rugby chairman Geoff Irvine said the plan is asking clubs to commit "financial suicide".
He added: "We don't understand why the RFU is in such a mad rush to try to force through a restructuring, particularly in such challenging economic times."
Premier Rugby CEO Mark McCafferty agreed: "New competitions cannot be forced through against the wishes of their proposed participants (and) it's a nonsense if the PGB (Professional Game Board) and its expertise is being bypassed."
So, how many clubs can make the change? Not the Cornish Pirates, who stated very publicly on their website that there was a £300,000 shortfall in their possible plan, and that even that figure was a minimum, but should operations continue on the current basis there would be no problem at all.
Nor Nottingham, who are already on the brink of closure as the credit crunch eats away at sponsors, despite being in third place of the current National Division One table.
What about Esher and Newbury, who have slowly and steadily worked their ways up through the divisions in recent years? Neither is particularly ready to go fully professional, although they are both in healthy financial positions. In time, they could have a go, but not next season.
What about below National Division One? Plymouth Albion Director of Rugby Graham Dawe said that the club game as a whole would suffer dreadfully because of the sudden expansion of the elite.
"The most important thing in this league structure is that a team say can come from the bottom league which could be Torpoint and go and play in the Premiership and we don't want to lose that," he said to the BBC.
Redruth - who are top of National Two and very much looking forward to the promotion they wouldn't get under the new plan - Director of Rugby Dave Penberthy outlined the practical problems for the smaller clubs of the current Division One.
"I have worked out that it would cost at least £1.25m for a basic squad and professional coaches and staff," said Penberthy, also to the BBC.
"But a lot of our players and coaches are professionals elsewhere and wouldn't want to give up their jobs to play rugby full time.
"I wouldn't give up my job for possibly only 12 months of professional rugby," added Penberthy, who is a sales contracts manager at an energy saving equipment company."
None of the above oppose the plan itself. Nobody could. If the game and the clubs are ready to make that step, so be it. But all of them, without exception, oppose the idiotic timescale of nine months for this all to happen. Nine months is not enough time for rugby - which has barely any of the clout of soccer in the UK - to find the sort of funding it needs to make this all feasible, and especially not when the economy of the country is going down the tubes faster than that of an over-ambitious, over-spending, under-achieving sports club.
So perhaps this is the compromise that needs to be met. The plan works fundamentally, so the RFU can guarantee its assistance and support for when the Championship does happen. But surely they can suggest that plan, have it tentatively agreed to, and then leave the clubs and First Division Rugby to make their own timescale according to the First Division's own needs, rather than try and just tell the clubs what to do the whole time according to the RFU's ambitions?
That way, if it goes wrong, First Division Rugby have only themselves to blame. As it is, the RFU have not only abandoned common sense, but also made a rod for their own back. I've heard that before somewhere actually...
By Danny Stephens