Plan to curtail free trips rejected by RFU council
Owen Slot, Alex Lowe
May 1 2019, 12:01am, The Times
The 55 members of the RFU council have controversially refused to accept proposed cuts to their expenses budget so that they can continue to go on their preferred number of free trips to Rome and Paris during the Six Nations Championship.
The RFU is having to make huge budget cuts across all departments of between 10 and 20 per cent. The community game recently signed off on cuts of £5 million, and the professional game is soon to have to agree to a trim of £2.5 million. When the council was asked to fall into line, it voted against such austerity and agreed only to make 6 per cent cuts and lose one free trip a year.
The council is an influential decision-making body consisting mainly of the elected chairmen and women of the counties, who work on voluntarily as representatives of their constituent bodies. The council gets sign-off on many of the RFU’s big decisions. It is the same body that Will Carling, when he was England captain 24 years ago, famously described as “57 old farts”.
The council has a rewards and recognition group that has been working for more than a year on how to make cuts to its budget. Before the most recent council meeting, on April 12, the group had formulated a proposal that cut the expenses budget by more than £100,000. However, before the meeting an amended proposal was made which stipulated that the council should only slim down by one trip a year and thus cut the budget by £56,000.
The council’s privileges encompass free travel, hotels and dinners for England’s away games during the Six Nations. These trips are for two nights each at hotels such as the Westbury in Dublin, the Balmoral in Edinburgh and the Intercontinental Le Grand in Paris, where the quoted prices start at more than €400 (about £340) per night.
For home games at Twickenham, the council is treated to three nights in the Twickenham Marriott, which is no cheaper, plus a black-tie dinner on the night before the game. These dinners have been held recently at venues such as the Cliveden House hotel and Claridges.
The council members also get two free tickets to home games plus lunch and an all-day free bar.
Not all council members accept all the privileges. There are some who book their own travel and cut costs accordingly.
At the meeting on April 12, there were a number of members who felt that the privileges that they enjoyed were not aligned with the rest of the RFU.
A proposal was made that, for home games, there should no longer be a post-match function for the council to attend. This proposal was voted in.
It was on the foreign trips that there was less unity. The big years are known as “the blue years” because England play away against the nations whose teams wear blue shirts: Italy, France and Scotland. The non-blue years, such as this year, are away games in Dublin and Cardiff. On average, an away trip costs the council £56,000 though the blue-year trips tend to be more expensive.
For non-blue years, the proposal made was to go from two away trips to one. This was voted in.
For blue years, the initial proposal was to go from three trips to one. This would have given the council a budget reduction of 12 per cent.
However, this was where the late amendment was made: to lose only one trip, not two. When it went to the vote, the majority voted to keep two.
A number of council members are known to be embarrassed that their constituent body voted for a 6 per cent cut every other year, rather than the proposed 12 per cent.
At the RFU, 62 staff were made redundant last year. A number of those were community coaches. If the council was to cut a second free trip from their blue year travel schedule, they would be able to get two community coaches back into work.
This is not the first time that the council has rejected cuts. For the autumn internationals, in November, they turned down a proposal that they should pay for their partners’ tickets and post-match meals, which would have saved the RFU an estimated £30,000.
Chris Kelly, the RFU president, told The Times: “Changes were agreed to reduce costs associated with the running of the council. While the 2019-20 business plan is yet to be finalised, council costs will be lower next season.”
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