Benefactors would be more apposite ...
Indeed. However, let us liken a corporate task (be it a charity, business, rugby club ...) to the task a pushing a broken down car.
Four good citizens offer to push the hapless driver to a garage up the street. Not too far. All concerned can see the goal and know the shared effort is doable.
In the case of any Championship club, those pushing are the ticket buying fans, the benefactor, the RFU, and sponsors.
But, here the RFU have ceased pushing, but are faking it with grunts and red face. Worse, they own the garage, and have closed that one down and say you must now push in the general direction of the other side of town. The fans might still push, but the sponsors and benefactor no longer have clarity of purpose and goal, and feel they are being asked to shoulder an unfair share of the effort. Not surprisingly, they walked away leaving the car in the road, with RFU calling out 'Why did you do that, we were helping you, weren't we?', and the fans seriously annoyed. The car gets towed and scrapped.