RFU still has urgent questions to answer

THE biggest story of the season in the domestic game in England came three weeks ago when the Championship clubs defeated RFU/ Premiership attempts to enshrine the ring-fencing of the top league.

- NICK CAIN

The staunch and sustained opposition from the Championship clubs – including the threat of refusing to co-operate with the incumbent Twickenham administration – resulted in the RFU Council being compelled to vote to restore promotion-relegation for the coming season.

This brought an end to the disastrous 2021 moratorium on promotion-relegation, which had the double detrimental impact of not only killing aspiration in the English league structure below the Premiership, but also failing utterly to prevent three Premiership clubs, Wasps, London Irish and Worcester, going bust.

It forced the RFU into a belated agreement to a play-off between the Championship winners and Premiership tailenders. This was, however, a massive compromise by the Championship, because the previous regulation was automatic one-up one-down between the two leagues.

This was offset by the introduction of two crucial RFU concessions. The first is a progressive stadium development plan over four years, which stops a promoted Championship club from potentially being bankrupted by being bounced into meeting an RFU minimum standard criterion of a 10,000 capacity in a single year.

The second is the establishment of a joint Championship Board with three Championship representatives, and three from the RFU, overseen by an independent chair.