Fight to save Championship: Nick Cain talks to Coventry director Nick Johnston
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NICK Johnston believes that change must come quickly if the English Championship is to survive. It is why the Coventry managing director has taken the stand as an urgent, spirited advocate for the second tier English professional league in this exclusive interview.
Johnston knows the Championship clubs are on the precipice of being unsustainable, and that their position is more perilous than that of much wealthier Premiership clubs, who are also facing dire financial problems. It comes with the attendant concern that Premiership clubs are using the financial hardship caused by the pandemic to push their ring-fencing agenda harder than ever, especially with today's front page news that relegation will be suspended this season. Johnston says the midwinter landscape confronting Coventry and fellow Championship clubs is bleak. Not only has their annual funding from the RFU and PRL been slashed from £645,000 to a mere £146,000, but their season start has been delayed until March.
This delay is despite the much smaller Women's Premier 15s league being able to restart in October, without Covid testing, under ‘adapted laws' . Meanwhile, the RFU have taken the decision to dump Covid testing costs of £5,000 per week per club at the Championship's door before it restarts. Johnston believes Championship clubs have to stand up and be counted, rather than be passive bystanders as others decide their fate – and that as a starting point its message on ring-fencing has to be loud and clear.
“The talk is that the Premiership will go to 13 teams, but they have to go through the RFU Council. They say they want a three-year moratorium, but it could be ten years. That cannot happen. We will challenge why ringfencing is not being challenged by the RFU. We have to go on the front foot.”
Johnston's track record as a trailblazing high-performance coach with Sale, Northampton, and Worcester, in both the Premiership and the Championship makes him an expert witness on how to drive the second pro league forward. It also gives him a perspective that not many in decision-making positions in the Championship possess.
Johnston adds: “Promotion has to be achievable. When we went up while I was with Northampton and Worcester it was different (because we had parachute payments), but it has to be equitable and aspirational. Exeter have done it, but now we hear that they are anti-Championship.
“I know a number of clubs have looked at the anti-competition laws. But with the right people around the table, and constructive dialogue, we should not have to take that last resort.”
Johnston's comments are timely, because if ever the Championship needed someone to champion its cause, it is now. The league has been shunted into the shadows by the RFU, and it has become obvious it cannot expect important initiatives to emerge from a Twickenham administration in thrall to the Premiership's demands.
Johnston says: “We should have been playing under the amended laws since October, just like the women. You get the feeling it's about who shouts loudest in the room, and the Championship's voice has not been loud enough.”
He adds: “ It should also be non-negotiable that the Covid testing is centrally funded. It costs £5,000 per week with zero income coming into our clubs.
“We have been training for three months, even though furlough payments take care of (only) 52 per cent of our costs. It is resilience that counts, and the people at this club have shown that, especially our owner, Jon Sharp. He is passionate about the area – he was brought up on a council estate in Coventry. Jon doesn't want to take any money out of the club, he wants to make sure it is here to stay. We are four years from our 150th anniversary and while we are not in the top league, we are still one of the most famous clubs in the world.
“That's why I don't believe in us being feeder clubs for the Premiership. I believe in cooperation, but you don't want clubs to lose their heritage. Imagine me telling David Duckham we are a feeder club for Wasps.
“However, we are not into elitism. We want strong links with the NCA leagues below. Teams should be able to aspire, and there should be an open updown pathway.”
Johnston's model of fair play contrasts starkly with the RFU's refusal to intervene in a cartel structure which has allowed the Premiership to slash central funding for promoted Championship clubs, and make fat parachute payments to relegated Premiership clubs.
Worse still, the Championship clubs have been so cowed by RFU cuts and their own lack of unity, that at the time when they needed to be fighting their corner they have been invisible.
The incomprehensible policy of the Championship committee, under chairman Steve Lloyd of Doncaster, is to keep a low profile, with club spokesmen urged not to speak to the media. The disappearing act happened despite Johnston's attempts to mobilise the Championship by becoming a driving force in the English Championship (TEC) proposal presented to the second division clubs last June.
Johnston, who worked with former Saracens chief executive Edward Griffiths and Nottingham's Steve Smith to produce the proposal, was disappointed by the initial response to the document because of parish-pump attitudes within the Championship and the RFU.
The 76-page blueprint contained radical proposals, including an independent administrative and commercial structure headed by an NFL-style commissioner.
It also proposed a reorganisation of the academy system around universities and Championship clubs, with a dual playing/academic pathway, and the introduction of a draft system like those in American sport.
However, the response was a Championship committee in uproar and the TEC authors declared “renegades”, even though it was a discussion document rather than the final draft. Soon after the final presentation in July the blueprint was shelved. Johnson believes the main reason is petty.
“It didn't get through, not because of merit, but because of personality. Ed Griffiths upsets some people, but he gave his time for free to prepare the proposal and worked his socks off.”
Johnston says the issues it raised a still burning hot. He says it is staggering the RFU have allowed Premiership academies a monopoly on junior talent.
“There's got to be a better mod that's fair to both leagues. How have the RFU given an independent body total control of the player flow in English rugby?”
Johnston says it is equally unfathomable how the RFU have failed to recognise the significance of the Championship's contribution to the English elite game, not just in nurturing players but also producing top quality coaches.
“Bill Sweeney's argument for cutting Championship funds was that it was not a good return on the RFU's investment. Perhaps he should look at the great job Lee Blackett is doing at Wasps, having learned his trade at Rotherham. He should also check out Lee's coaching team, which includes current Nottingham head coach Neil Fowkes (scrum), former Nottingham head coach, Ian Costello (defence), and former Nottingham/ Wasps flanker Matt Everard (skills).”
He adds: “The RFU have not grown the Championship at all. The title sponsorship of the Championship should be a seven figure sum, but instead the RFU traded it for £300,000 in beer-pouring rights at Twickenham matches.”
Johnston sums up: “We've got to take ownership – that's what the TEC blueprint was about. We need independent governance if we want to thrive. We can't play the victim. It's about taking control of our own futures. We have to be united and collaborative.
“We have been an easy target – the orphan nobody wants, but there is a change in the wind now because, even though TEC was put into sleep mode, the harsh realities of the pandemic mean it is beginning to wake up again.
“The pandemic is a huge threat to our survival – but not having a competition to play in is an even bigger threat.
“My recommendation? Appoint Ed Griffiths as an independent commissioner of the Championship. And if we formed a company overnight, the Championship would automatically be more powerful.”
With Nick Johnston as a driving force words could turn into action – and at last the Championship would be moving in the right direction.
