Nick Cain column: Feed the Championship before it dies of neglect

London WelshThere are very few players in the squad who have not benefitted from the time they have spent with a club, whether it's Owen Farrell, Dan Cole and George Kruis at Bedford, at Leeds, or Jack Clifford at Ealing.
The Championship is an essential part of having a viable professional game in England, not only in helping to develop many of its elite players and coaches – with 's in the vanguard – but also in providing a bedrock of England-qualified players for the clubs, and the national team.
However, by failing to ensure that the clubs in England's second tier professional league received an adequate share of funding as part of the £225 million deal they struck with Premiership Rugby at the end of last month, the RFU are in danger of abnegating their responsibility.
The Championship is currently like a tree that is being starved of water, and my fear, like that of many of those involved in the league, is that it will wilt and die as a professional entity unless the taps are turned on by the RFU's chief executive, Ian Ritchie.
While the RFU have agreed to pay the Premiership clubs £112 million over the next four years, the 12 Championship clubs will have to make do and mend with just £530,000 a season per club, after being presented with a fait accompli by Twickenham. That adds up to just under £22 million over four years – with the promise of an additional
£1 million per annum given by the RFU to Premiership Rugby, with the proviso it is handed on to the Championship.
tree cartoonHowever, with many Championship clubs spending £1 million per season the deficit has to be met by owners and local sponsors, and many of them are heavily in debt. There is also growing resentment of the RFU giving £1 million due to the Championship to Premiership Rugby first, rather than giving it straight to the second tier.
The fire is fuelled further by Premiership attempts to control the Championship promotion and relegation structure with the threat that unless they accept a first-past-the-post system within the next four years – rather than the existing play-off format – there will be no increases in funding.
The Championship clubs are incensed by the status quo according to one club official I spoke to this week: “It has been agreed on our behalf without our consent. We're not necessarily against first-past-the-post, but it will only happen if we are properly funded. We believe the additional yearly figure the Championship receives should be £2 million. It does not take a genius to work out that first-past-the-post means a financial loss to the four play-off teams of £750,000 – and more when you take into account 16,000 fans paying £40 at Ashton Gate when played Doncaster.”
The big concern among Championship clubs is that they are already dealing with a playing field that is not level. They argue that clubs relegated from the Premiership coming down with a £4 million parachute payment have a massive advantage in a first-past-the-post format over second tier clubs whose budget is less than a quarter of that.
As our source put it: “If London Irish come down and are 20 points clear at the top of the table with two months to go because they have so much more money to spend on players, what's the point of everyone else competing if there's no play-off to aim for? The only way the first-past-the-post system can work is if we have a meritocracy fund where the competitive edge remains because you get a financial reward for where you finish in the table.”
Many Championship officials believe that if the second tier moves from being a professional to a part-time league that an additional concern for the RFU will be the predominance of teams from London – especially south-west London – because of superior earning and sponsorship opportunities in the capital. With London Irish, , , Ealing and already making up almost half the league, they warn that the upshot could be shrinkage of the game in the North and Midlands in particular.
With so much at stake, and genuine anger at being caught in a funding no man's land between the RFU and Premiership Rugby, there are signs that the Championship clubs have at last come together to fight in a common cause.
As things stand all 12 clubs are united in the view that the funding on offer following the RFU-Premiership Rugby agreement is unacceptable, and have refused it. The next move is a meeting with RFU boss Ritchie in the middle of the month, and he faces a difficult negotiation because this time the Championship clubs say they are determined not to be left high and dry.

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