That is the view of JRFC chairman Bill Dempsey this week as details of the Greene King IPA Championship’s new five-year financial deal with England Rugby’s governing body are released.
From 1 July this year, Championship clubs will receive an extra £45,000 in general funding per season and could receive anything up to an additional £150,000 in total should they ‘tick the right boxes’.
Dempsey also revealed that as part of the deal – which will run until the end of the 2019/20 season and replace the remaining 12 months of the existing contract – British & Irish Cup entrants will now receive £15,000 per season (up from £6,250) and refereeing costs will be absorbed by the RFU; saving clubs around £14,000 a year.
Further backing will be made available to improve facilities and cater for player insurance and medical support. And, while agreeing that a 4G surface like the one at Saracens’ Allianz Park (where fans are encouraged onto the pitch to socialise after a game) would be ‘fantastic’, Dempsey has said that initial focus will be on the latter; particularly with the Championship now adopting stricter regulations on treatment for and recovery from concussion.
‘We’d love to have an all-weather pitch and we would certainly like to look into that in the future,’ said Dempsey. ‘It would be fantastic for us as we have over 600 kids in our academy, so we could facilitate them in bad weather and also facilitate the amount of training going on throughout the week. We have teams like the Colts, the Buccaneers, Athletic and the Ladies all training, so it would be a huge benefit, but obviously there are huge costs involved.
‘Our number one plan is to sort out our medical facility. Going forward with the new concussion protocols that the Championship now have we need to have high standards. We’ve passed that, but there will always be areas we need to develop, so going forwards when they do inspections they’ll be looking for more and I’ve no doubt that standards will keep rising.’
Dempsey continued: ‘£50,000 will be available for facility funding. We’re still waiting for detail, but we do expect this will be done with a soft-touch approach.
‘It will cover everything from ground and facility improvements to medical improvements, and if we can do everything that is required of us the figure should be about £150,000.
The weather may have been kind to the record number of visiting supporters last week for Jersey’s game against Worcester, but Dempsey appreciates this is not always the case, and as the club look to provide a boost the Island’s tourism he indicated that plans to improve spectator welfare are also being considered.
‘We’d also love to put in a bigger stand, but that is possibly about 18 months away, and we would also look at covering other areas. We’ve had a discussion with people from the Island Games about the seating they are getting over, and some of that may be made available to us. If that is the case it would be great, and maybe we could then look at getting a temporary cover on the terraces for up to 700 supporters for three or four months of the season to trial it and see how it works.’
The new deal is indeed a step forward for clubs in the second tier of English rugby, but Dempsey also said that he remains hopeful of greater backing in the not-too-distant future.
‘From our perspective what we want is more than double what we’re getting,’ he added. ‘It isn’t just to put money in the bank, it’s what’s required to run a Championship team. We’re possibly halfway to where the club needs to be, but it’s the deal we’ve got and we have to get on with it.’
