Besieged Sweeney fights on in face of growing rebellion

As the RFU chief executive’s future hangs in the balance, it is time for radical reform of English rugby’s governing body

- HARRY LATHAM-COYLE

Out of the bunker at last strode Bill Sweeney, hard hat on and ears ringing. For two months, the embattled chief executive of the Rugby Football Union (RFU) had been a man under fire, the English game in revolt over an ill-judged accepting of a bonus agreed long ago – and much more besides.

Clad in jacket, shirt, jeans and trainers – the casual costume of the contemporary CEO – Sweeney held firm and forthright against the rat-a-tat-tat of the great many questions he had, until now, publicly dodged. Bulletproof Bill, some are calling him, among other rather less pleasant sobriquets – besieged, beleaguered, but brazen, it was time to defend the almost indefensible.

The breaking of a nearly two-month silence after a period of infighting and ire beyond any that even this bastion of insurrection has witnessed. The strength of feeling has been clear in every conversation at every level. It is not just the tonedeaf decision around the Long-Term Incentive Plan about which there has been fury. The swinging of the RFU’s axe has left a great many sticks with which to beat them: the underperformance of the men’s national team; the foisting of an unpopular tackle height law change on the community game amid falling player numbers; the cutting of funding to the Championship clubs.