Gallagher Premiership: how to fix English club rugby
Owen Slot, Will Kelleher and Stuart Barnes discuss what needs to happen to get England’s top flight out of its present mess
Wednesday October 19 2022, 5.00pm, The Times
How would you restructure the league to improve its sustainability and stability? What is the perfect number of teams for the top flight?
Owen Slot Ideally, eight clubs in Prem 1 and ten in Prem 2. The eight is due to welfare, to reduce number of matches (players in Prem 2 are unlikely to have international commitments). However, reality is that reducing a 13-team league to eight would be unsustainable, because seven home fixtures is too few. That’s why they’ll probably end up with two leagues of ten teams.
Will Kelleher A two-tiered Gallagher Premiership, where the league runs both levels and organises a broadcast deal that covers all those teams, would be my preference. To start with the two divisions could have eight in each, if buyers are found for Wasps and Worcester Warriors. Add Ealing Trailfinders, Doncaster Knights and — say — Cornish Pirates. Two up, two down between them each year.
Stuart Barnes A system with promotion/relegation is paramount if the sport is to avoid stagnation. Restructuring should zero in on guaranteeing enough clubs not to bore the rugby audience with a never-changing cast of clubs yet not too many to maintain the debilitating clashing between club and country. An aspiration of 20 is a starting point.
If the Premiership proceeds with a two division plan, should those top two divisions be ring-fenced? Or should there be route into the top two tiers?
OS There has to be a route up to the top two tiers, though the danger here is the preposterous sums then spent lower down the pyramid chasing “the Exeter Chiefs dream”. This is killing club rugby. Any smart new system has to encourage aspiration and manage hopeless dreamers.
WK Not closed off for good, but managed so that teams can come into the leagues in time if they can prove a sustainable business plan, funding model, and consistent on-field quality. That would allow a club like Coventry, for example, to grow within their means, then enter when ready.
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SB Ring-fencing is a form of capitulation to the status quo. There would have been no Exeter with such a prohibitive rule in place. Sport has to have room for dreamers, even if they might end up as nightmares. Whose is the right to stifle dreams?
Should there be any conditions on Premiership membership — such as ground size, ground ownership, cash reserves, sustainability?
OS Definitely ground size. Plus, evidence required for a potentially respectable average minimum gate (which is why re-seeding a club, like the wandering Wasps, geographically to a rugby-rich Premiership desert — say, Sevenoaks — may be smart) .
WK Definitely — but less on ground size. The 10,000 capacity number stated as important for Premiership participation by the Professional Game Board has privately been stated to be a poor suggestion. Clubs should have to open their books and state their financial health every year to an independent regulator as a condition of their membership.
SB No “P-shares”. The tools of a cartel. Ground size is important. How the sport looks on TV is important for the game’s image. But, from promotion, give a team two years to meet the target. Good academies are central to stable professionalism. Central contracting depends on it.
OS Isn’t this a red herring? There is already a kind of central-contract system, with the RFU paying the players and playing the clubs for the players. All we are talking about here is a rejigging of this deal, probably with the RFU paying more for greater control. It is the clubs’ relationship with the RFU that needs to be redrawn.
WK A central contract where England pays 100 per cent of Test player wages is not feasible as the RFU cannot afford to pay around £25 million a year for 36 players. More feasible is a dual deal, like some Welsh players have, where the club pays a percentage. It could help clubs to retain talent and spread salary cap money but cannot just carve off the best only for England at the detriment of the Premiership.
SB Central contracts could be the bridge between club and country. Develop more players for England, keep those players on the books but allow the RFU to pay them. Right now we have a combination of burdensome salaries and absenteeism regarding English internationals. Central contracts are the carefully-negotiated solution.
Should there be a limit on players’ match-time when they just appeal to play again – such as Ellis Genge at the start of this season – or would a ten-team league solve the problem of England player availability for club rugby?
OS Of course there has to be a limit on match-time. But no way can we have a repeat of Owen Farrell available for Saracens versus Harlequins, who aren’t permitted to pick Marcus Smith. That was humiliatingly silly.
WK Ten teams would mean fewer overlaps, which is good for players, fans, coaches, marketing and player welfare, as long as other or new competitions do not fill the gaps which would defeat the whole point. A stricter maximum matches per season, and/or minutes played, should be part of that.
SB A smaller league is an obvious asset in terms of player-welfare management. I don’t like centralised orders but players must be limited in their seasonal match (and training) time. Flexible thinking, not hard and fast rules for varying situations/personalities is a tentative answer.
Will rugby regret its partnership with CVC?
OS Unless things change, yes. CVC are now pocketing 27 per cent of the clubs’ income. It promised to grow the pot so far that, nevertheless, overall income would grow. That point is a long way off.
WK Aside from paying off debts — not all successfully either — it does not seem on the surface that English rugby has gained much from its CVC deal. Those in favour of the company talk of their role to get stakeholders together but as of yet there is no agreement for new structures, calendars or a clear vision for the future.
SB I don’t know if the clubs regret it, but I do. CVC is in sport for its own profit. Fine, that’s the nature of the beast. If the game was nothing but a broken husk ten years from now it wouldn’t matter to any organisation where the profit motive prevails over all else. The business should be sport. With private equity, sport’s their business opportunity.
What else would you change about domestic rugby?
OS 1, Align the academies with leading rugby universities. Have 19/20-year-olds playing BUCS rugby and simultaneously getting a qualification.
2, Spread the word. For a decade, Premiership Rugby and its outstanding players have been miserably undermarketed.
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3, Centralise the business and commercial operations for the Premiership clubs. CVC has wanted to do this and has failed.
WK Once you have a two-tiered Premiership, replace the Premiership Rugby Cup with an FA Cup-style unseeded, straight knockout competition between both leagues. The final should ideally be taken to grounds around the country like Brighton, Norwich, Cornwall. It’d provide a chance for kids and present a meaningful trophy to be won.
SB The relationship between referees and TMOs. Eddie Jones was right in his recent criticisms. The game is too stop-start and referees too dependent on others. More time with the ball in play, less listening to, “let me just check this tenth angle”. Please!
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