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'There's no financial crisis here... it's not in as bad a situation as I expected it to be'
By Online Editors
Chief executive Bill Sweeney has insisted there isn’t a financial crisis affecting at the RFU. Former chief executive Steve Brown lost his job over hefty cuts that led to scores of job losses.
However, the former British Olympic Association (BOA) chief, who joined the RFU in February in a bid to reverse serious financial troubles suffered by the English game's governing body, is adamant there isn’t a crisis that will damage the union’s long-term health.
“There's no financial crisis here,” he insisted. “The similarities with the BOA are there, it's a cyclical business. You’d expect to have a loss-making year in the year coming up. It's not a financial crisis.
“The business model at the RFU is inherently very healthy, we generate a lot of cash, a lot of revenue and if you keep your costs in control there's no reason why that should be a fragile business plan. So it's inherently strong. Stabilising the financial situation is a key priority.
“It's not in as bad a situation as perhaps I would have expected it to be quite frankly, having read a number of things coming in. The team here has done a really good job over the last 18 months already, taking quite a bit of cost out of the operation.”
Brown, who exited last November, had only been in the role for 15 months. The RFU posted losses of £30.9m for the last financial year, as well as having made numerous redundancies in a cost-cutting exercise.
By March it was feared that the England sevens programme could be disbanded as a cost-cutting measure as Twickenham began looking at ways to save £20million in the areas of the professional and community games and overheads across the next four years. Of that sum, cuts of at least £5 million need to be made for the 2019-20 financial year.
An RFU spokeswoman said at the time: “We have been very clear for some time that we need to cut costs in 2019-2020 as our revenues have not risen in line with our original forecasts.
“We have kept the game informed - and this is also outlined in our annual report. We are currently consulting with the game on how best to adjust costs. There are a broad range of options under discussion across the professional game, the community game, and our general overheads.
“Any budget cuts in 2019/2020 come after years of record investment in the professional and community game.”
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The boy needs to bulk up if wants to play 10 or 11 to handle those hits, otherwise he could always make a brilliant reserve for the wings if he stays away from the stretcher.
Go to commentsIn another recent article I tried to argue for a few key concept changes for EPCR which I think could light the game up in the North.
First, I can't remember who pointed out the obvious elephant in the room (a SA'n poster?), it's a terrible time to play rugby in the NH, and especially your pinnacle tournament. It's been terrible watching with seemingly all the games I wanted to watch being in the dark, hardly able to see what was going on. The Aviva was the only stadium I saw that had lights that could handle the miserable rain. If the global appeal is there, they could do a lot better having day games.
They other primary idea I thuoght would benefit EPCR most, was more content. The Prem could do with it and the Top14 could do with something more important than their own league, so they aren't under so much pressure to sell games. The quality over quantity approach.
Trim it down to two 16 team EPCR competitions, and introduce a third for playing amongst the T2 sides, or the bottom clubs in each league should simply be working on being better during the EPCR.
Champions Cup is made up of league best 15 teams, + 1, the Challenge Cup winner. Without a reason not to, I'd distribute it evenly based on each leauge, dividing into thirds and rounded up, 6 URC 5 Top14 4 English. Each winner (all four) is #1 rank and I'd have a seeding round or two for the other 12 to determine their own brackets for 2nd, 3rd, and 4th. I'd then hold a 6 game pool, home and away, with consecutive of each for those games that involve SA'n teams. Preferrably I'd have a regional thing were all SA'n teams were in the same pool but that's a bit complex for this simple idea.
That pool round further finalises the seeding for knockout round of 16. So #1 pool has essentially duked it out for finals seeding already (better venue planning), and to see who they go up against 16, 15,etc etc. Actually I think I might prefer a single pool round for seeding, and introduce the home and away for Ro16, quarters, and semis (stuffs up venue hire). General idea to produce the most competitive matches possible until the random knockout phase, and fix the random lottery of which two teams get ranked higher after pool play, and also keep the system identical for the Challenge Cup so everthing is succinct. Top T2 side promoted from last year to make 16 in Challenge Cup
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