Baron: It's time for the entire RFU Board to go

FRANCIS Baron has called for the replacement of the entire RFU Board, adding a radical dimension to the demand for change at Twickenham which has led to the SGM on March 27.

- NICK CAIN

The former RFU chief executive said that he has reached this conclusion based on the 13-member Board's inability to see that it is leading the RFU in the wrong direction, and failing to rectify a dangerous decline in the English union's financial status.

Baron told The Rugby Paper: "The groupthink that has taken over the Board means that, although they may all be fine, worthy people, they are all travelling in the wrong direction and, because of groupthink, they can't see it."

He added: "I don't be lieve in all the personal abuse going on as a matter of principle. However, when you get a bunch of people who collectively think that making a £42 million annual record loss for a national governing body in UK sport is okay, and say our finances are great, and our CEO deserves a £1.1m pay package even though he has just fired 42 people, you come to the conclusion that collectively they have got to go, because they can't see the wood for the trees any longer."

Baron says that the LTIP bonus scheme approved by the Board, which boosted chief executive Bill Sweeney's annual remuneration to £1.1m, was wrongly conceived because of the RFU's record loss in the year it was awarded.

"Across the business world if a CEO runs a loss, no bonus is payable - and if they make huge losses they lose their job. No bonus scheme ever pays out on losses, and while I don't disagree with bonuses for good performance, with the LTIP scheme we've turned it on its head."