Championship leaders Coventry confirm Premiership application
Coventry Rugby have confirmed they will attempt to break into English rugby’s Gallagher Premiership if they end the current season as winners of the Championship.
The top flight has in recent times become a closed shop in which ten shareholders in Premiership Rugby Ltd (PRL) share TV income, RFU funding and other revenues through PRL.
This elite group has shrunk from 13 in the course of the last three years following the collapse of Wasps, Worcester Warriors and London Irish.
In previous times promotion and relegation between the Premiership and English rugby’s second tier was an annual event which allowed current top-flight strugglers Exeter plus the likes of Leeds, Rotherham and London Welsh to enjoy spells at the top table.
However, off-field conditions for entry were progressively tightened and as a result very few have in recent times been in a position to both make an application while also being realistic Championship title winners.
While these qualification criteria have this season been reviewed and on the surface relaxed, a number of Championship clubs have pointed to the small print which still requires significant upfront investment in stadium capacity planning consents before a promotion application will be considered.
According to Cov executive chair Jon Sharp this situation remains the subject of further discussion and potentially a legal challenge.
However, he advised that the Blue and Whites will press on anyway and have therefore submitted a promotion application which will become active should they win the Championship then a two-legged play-off against the Premiership’s bottom club.
“Along with our fellow Championship clubs we are anticipating that some of the promotion criteria currently in place are relaxed,” he said.
“However, as the West Midlands’ highest-ranked club we must make our ambition clear here and now. We will therefore do whatever we can to meet the standards that allow us to bring Premiership Rugby to our city.
“Vital to this is the support of both Coventry City Council and the West Midlands Combined Authority and we are building good working relationships with both.
“In particular we need their help with planning permissions that meet the Premiership’s ground capacity requirements while also facilitating our wider redevelopment of the Arena.
“This is a key part of our plan to fast-track the club to being independently financially sustainable through a business model that a has multiple revenue streams. In time we believe the Butts will become a destination venue for top-level national, regional, and local sport, music concerts and major food and cultural events.”
150-year-old ‘Cov’ is both the oldest senior sports club in the city and one that prides itself on its community-centric approach.
This was underlined when its recently-showcased development plans revealed significant amounts of affordable sheltered accommodation for those needing supported later living. These plans also deliver an innovative approach to tackling bed-blocking in local hospitals.
In addition to its Championship-leading first team and a rapidly-developing rugby academy, Coventry also has a thriving community programme. With the support of the club’s charitable foundation this delivers rugby and netball around the city with a focus on transforming lives through sport.
According to chief executive Nick Johnston, the club hopes this promotion application will shine a spotlight on what the club is achieving and possibly as a result also draw in additional investment.
“Someone told me recently that we’re one of the West Midlands’ best-kept secrets,” he said.
“We would very much like to lose that tag and we believe applying for and hopefully getting promotion to the Premiership will do that.
“Bringing top-level sport to Coventry will hugely benefit the local economy as well as being great publicity for the city through its regular presence on national TV. We are already getting more attention with our recent games getting some coverage on BBC Midlands Today.
“With the support of our local authorities we can develop the Butts Park Arena into something which gives a big boost to the regeneration of Spon End, assists those needing supported living and also creates a Premiership-standard venue which is fit for purpose.
“Everyone is aware of the financial problems that have seen four prominent English clubs fail in recent years.
“Getting the right financial structures behind our business is clearly of vital importance and to this end we set up an investment panel earlier in the year to facilitate our growth strategy.
“We would love to attract additional investment into the club from someone who supports what we’re doing within rugby, the community and as a leading city centre events venue as Coventry Rugby is on the up!”
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Finally someone pointing out jordies value at first receiver. The canes used him there throughout the season and we all know how good they were. It didn't seem to be a tactic of the ABs whose backline was clunky at best all year.
Go to commentsI'm not sure you realise how extreme it is, previously over half of SR players ended up overseas. These days just over half finish their career at home (some of those might carry on in lower leagues around the world).
1. Look at a player like Mo'unga who took time to become comfortable at his max level, thrust a player like that in well above his level, something Farrell is possibly doing now with Pendergrast, and you fail to maximise your player base as a whole. I don't think you realise the balance in NZ, without controlling who can leave there is indeed right now an immediate risk from any further pressure on the balance. We are not as flush as a country like South Africa I can't imagine (look at senior mens numbers).
2. Your idea excludes foreign fans, not the current status, their global 1.8mil base (find a recent article about it) will dwindle. Our clubs don't compete against each other, it's a central model were all players have a flat max 200k contribution. NZR decides who is worth keeping for the ABs in a very delicate balance of who to let go and who not. Might explain why our Wellington game wasn't a sellout.
3. Players aren't going to play for their country for nothing while other players are getting a million dollars. How much does SARU pay or reimburse their players?
4. I don't believe that at all. Everything so far has pointed to becoming an AB as the 'profile' winner. Comms love telling their fans some 'lucky' 1 cap guy is an "All Black" and the audience goes woooh!
But the repercussions are end game, so why is it worth the risk?
This comment is so out of touch with rugby in NZ.
So, so out of touch. Never heard of Jamison Gibson-Park, or Bundee Aki, or Chandler Cunningham-South, what about Uino Atonio? Numerous kiwi kids, like Warner Dearns, are playing in Japan having left after some stardom in school rugby here. Over a third of the NRL (so basically a third of the URC) are Kiwis who likely been scouted playing rugby at school. France have recently started in that path with Patrick Tuifua, and you hear loosely about good kids taking up offers to go overseas for basic things like school/uni (avg age 20+), similar to what attracts island kids to NZ.
But that's getting off track, it's too far in the future for you to conceptualize in this discussion. Where here because you think you know what it's like to need to select overseas based players, because of similarities like NZ and SA both having systems that funnel players into as few teams as possible in order to make them close to international quality, while also having a semi pro domestic league that produces an abundance of that talent, all the while facing similar financial predicaments. I'm not using extremes like some do, to scare monger away from making any changes. I am highlighting where the advantages don't cross over to the NZ game like the do for South Africa.
So while you are right in a lot of respects, some things that the can be taken for granted, is that if not more players leave, higher calibre players definitely will, and that is going to weaken the domestic competitions global reach, which will make it much hard to keep up or overtake the rest of the world. To put it simply, the domestic game is the future. International rugby is maxed out already, and the game here somehow needs to double it's revenue.
This is what you need to align your pitch with. Not being able to select players from overseas, because there are only ever one or two of those players. Sometimes even no one who'd be playing overseas and good enough for the ABs. You might be envisioning the effects of extremes, because it's hard to know just how things change slightly, but you know it's not going to be good.
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