Halliday: I'm proud of united approach

SIMON Halliday has left his role as chairman of the Championship Clubs’ board both proud and frustrated by his 12 months in the role.

- JON NEWCOMBE

The former England international has fought tooth and nail to give the Championship a voice and put the league in a position where it has been able to fight back against the Premiership cartel and RFU indifference.

The RFU Council vote in June that approved a promotion/relegation deal with the Premiership while also agreeing to the creation of a new and independently chaired Tier 2 governance board were major steps forward.

But, as Halliday is the first to admit, so much still needs to be done, with the Championship, RFU, and Premiership Rugby yet to agree on some important points around the key issues of promotion and relegation and funding.

At times, Halliday and Nottingham chairman Alistair Bow have been met with a wall of silence, with emails to RFU management going unanswered.

While Halliday and Bow are not walking away from the fight, they will still be actively involved through their clubs, Ealing Trailfinders and Nottingham, the CEOs of Coventry and Nottingham, Nick Johnston and Simon Beatham, have become the main custodians of the Championship's future.

Johnston and Beatham will join former Leicester CEO Simon Cohen as the Championship's representatives on the Tier 2 board, which also includes three RFU reps and an independent chairman.

"I've led an aggressive action to make the RFU stand up to its responsibilities and bring unity to clubs that hadn't been there before. We have got those clubs to a point where they manage their own destiny," Halliday told The Rugby Paper.

"That being said, we've been extremely unhappy with the pace of negotiations. We have to have a credible promotion and relegation system, and the board urgently needs to get that resolved with the RFU and Premiership Rugby.