IT is a pity that the RFU's response to the figures revealed in this column about the extent to which their reserves of £61.7m in 2011 have been drained to a negative £24.4m in 2019 could not have been penned by a more expert financial witness than the current president of the RFU, Jeff Blackett.
Those figures are a matter of public record. They are taken directly from the RFU's audited accounts for the years in question. The figures also contradict Blackett's statement in his letter to The Rugby Paper last week that “the RFU does maintain modest reserves”.
The notes to the accounts in 2019 showed the three types of reserves: Debenture £38.1m, profit and loss £28.6m, and other, minus £91.1m. This shows the £24.4m negative balance clearly.
So Blackett, or better still RFU chief executive Bill Sweeney or board chairman Andrew Cosslett should explain, based on the RFU's audited accounts, where these ‘modest reserves' are.
No one disputes Blackett's point that the RFU invests money in the game. It is a statement of the bleeding obvious that it is a big part of their remit as a governing body. What is in question is the disastrous overspend by the RFU during Cosslett's tenure as chairman, in particular the £220m PGA payment to the Premiership clubs, mainly for England player release.
Cosslett referred to this briefly in his chairman's report in the RFU's 2018 accounts. He said: “We also have to accept that over recent years we signed some long-term commitments with the professional game, which, while strategically important, now appear costly against updated revenue forecasts. This will restrict our discretionary investment capacity going forward.”
Costly? More like calamitous.
