'We're not going to get relegated' - Gloucester CEO wants to scrap relegation
Gloucester CEO Lance Bradley says he wants to scrap relegation, for this season at least, as the result of dropping to the Championship would be "catastrophic" for any club.
Whether or not Premiership Rugby keep relegation or ringfence the top division of English rugby has been a major talking point in recent seasons. The subject has thrust itself once again to the fore in recent weeks as clubs struggle to cope with the fallout of the pandemic and the resultant loss of earnings for already cash strapped Premiership sides.
Reports last weekend suggest that Premiership Rugby Ltd are set to scrap relegation this season and potentially run a 13 or 14 team league in 2021/22.
In an in-depth interview, Gloucester top dog Bradley has told City AM that he doesn't believe his side faces the drop, but insists now is the time to scrap relegation.
“We’re not going to get relegated. We’re not going to finish bottom of the table. And I don’t mean that to sound complacent, because we’re not."
Gloucester currently sit bottom on the table with just 6 points from 6 rounds of rugby.
“But the way that we are playing and the improvements that we have made, the players that we’ve got coming back from injury, we’re not contemplating relegation.”
“Nobody wants to be bottom of the league, but we’re actually very happy with what’s happening on the playing side.”
The CEO believes relegation in a season where Covid-19 has played had such a significant effect on table points wold be wholely 'unfair'.
“Nobody could have foreseen quite how many games were going to be cancelled this season. The chance of a team, whoever it might be, getting relegated because they happen to stay fit and healthy – that just doesn’t feel right.
“The consequences of getting relegated and having another huge hit to your income straight after that would be catastrophic.
“And it would be catastrophic for pretty much any club in the league. That isn’t really what it’s about.
“We’re looking at how to develop the game and broaden its reach. Having one of the Premiership clubs go out of business is completely counterintuitive to that.”
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Go to commentsI’m all for speeding up the game. But can we be certain that the slowness of the game contributed to fans walking out? I’m not so sure. Super rugby largely suffered from most fans only being able to, really, follow the games played in their own time zone. So at least a third of the fan base wasn’t engaged at any point in time. As a Saffer following SA teams in the URC - I now watch virtually every European game played on the weekend. In SR, I wouldn’t be bothered to follow the games being played on the other side of the world, at weird hours, if my team wasn’t playing. I now follow the whole tournament and not just the games in my time zone. Second, with New Zealand teams always winning. It’s like formula one. When one team dominates, people lose interest. After COVID, with SA leaving and Australia dipping in form, SR became an even greater one horse race. Thats why I think Japan’s league needs to get in the mix. The international flavor of those teams could make for a great spectacle. But surely if we believe that shaving seconds off lost time events in rugby is going to draw fans back, we should be shown some figures that supports this idea before we draw any major conclusions. Where are the stats that shows these changes have made that sort of impact? We’ve measured down to the average no. Of seconds per game. Where the measurement of the impact on the fanbase? Does a rugby “fan” who lost interest because of ball in play time suddenly have a revived interest because we’ve saved or brought back into play a matter of seconds or a few minutes each game? I doubt it. I don’t thinks it’s even a noticeable difference to be impactful. The 20 min red card idea. Agreed. Let’s give it a go. But I think it’s fairer that the player sent off is substituted and plays no further part in the game as a consequence.
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