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Championship clubs call for SGM

RFU CEO Bill Sweeney (Photo by Dan Mullan/Getty Images)

The 12 clubs in English rugby’s second tier issued a statement over the weekend calling for a Special General Meeting and a motion of no confidence in the leadership of the RFU.

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Championship clubs have long been unhappy with the treatment they have received on several issues whilst Bill Sweeney has been CEO of the RFU but his recent pay bonus of £358,000, which is more than double what a club gets in central funding for the year, is seen as the final straw.

RFU Chairman Tom Ilube has also been under fire for allowing Sweeney to be paid more than a million pounds when the English game is financially struggling with losses of  £42 million recently posted by the RFU, who have made 40 RFU staff redundant.

The Championship clubs have sent a letter to RFU President Rob Udwin, who hasn’t escaped criticism himself after initially blaming media spin for the pay scandal.

In the letter, the clubs stated that they could no longer stand by and allow the current situation and the unaccountable decision-making that led to it, to continue without challenge.

They said that they would be urging all other clubs and members of the union to support their call for an SGM (100 signatories are required) and a vote of no confidence so that the first steps to fundamental change could be taken.

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Comments

1 Comment
B
Bob Salad II 234 days ago

As an Englishman, it’s difficult when the game you love so much doesn’t love you back. The national team are poor, the domestic league has been (largely) humbled in Europe this weekend and my team Bristol who are playing some of the most exciting rugby in the Prem, got their pants pulled down by the mighty Leinster yesterday.


On top of all that, governance at the top of the English game is sickeningly bad while tv rights are becoming increasingly fragmented and placing even greater demands on the paying punter.


Frankly, It’s a complete sh$t show.

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Flankly 2 hours ago
There remains a culture of excuses in Australian rugby

One team has exceeded expectations in this series and the other has not. Hats off to a Wallabies team in rebuild mode for a smile-inducing effort in the second test (especially the first half).


Completely agree that a top ranked team finds ways to defend a big half-time lead, and they did not quite pull it off. The fact that Piardi did not run the Head Contact Process in the 79th minute Tizzano/Morgan incident is worth discussion. However, Schmidt will be pointing out to the team that avoiding a defensive breakdown on your own 5m line at that point in the game is the thing in their control. Equally, clarification 3-2022 says you cannot jump or dive as a means of avoiding a tackle, as Sheehan admits to have done, but the question for Australia is why and how they were facing a tap-and-go 5m from their line (again).


Where I disagree with this article is the suggestion that Australia are caught in an excuse-making trap of poor performance. For me they are on a steep curve of improvement, and from what we have seen of Schmidt, there is little reason to assume that this will end now. Granted Australia lacks player depth, and that’s a real problem against big teams and in major campaigns. But the Lions are a pretty good team, probably ranking in the top five in the world, and the rebuilding Wallabies were seconds (and a couple of 50/50 ref calls) away from beating them at the MCG.


In the end, the Wallabies are building to a home RWC, and were expected to lose the Lions series on the way to that goal. Success looks like being seriously competitive in the series loss, with good learnings about what needs to be fixed. A series win would have been a fantastic bonus, and humiliation for the UK/Ireland team.


I expect the Wallabies to be very credible in the 2025 RC, to be much better in 2026, and to be a very challenging opponent for any team in the 2027 RWC.

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