Jersey Reds boss: ‘RFU funding cuts are increasing the rugby divide’

Rugby. Greene King IPA Championship. Jersey Reds v Ealing Trailfinders. Brendan Cope and George Spencer. Picture: JON GUEGAN

Reds’ director of rugby Harvey Biljon said the governing body needs to stop ‘growing the divide’ between the top tier Premiership and the rest of the English league structure, adding that doing so would see both clubs and prospective players lose out.

Meanwhile, Jersey Reds chairman Mark Morgan took to Twitter over the weekend to vent his anger, saying that ‘the life-blood is being is being drained out of all other elements of the game under the RFU’s ownership’. He called the RFU’s approach ‘shameful’.

Morgan also said that England’s Six Nations performance was ‘an absolute disgrace’, given the ‘virtually unlimited funding at its disposal’.

He has echoed the sentiment of the haves and have-nots which has dominated the recent debate after the Premiership went one stop short of ring fencing their 13 shareholder clubs last month by allowing promotion from the Championship this season but scrapping relegation.

Previously Morgan has slammed the RFU for an ‘irresponsible and immoral’ approach to English rugby’s second-tier, which he says has thrown the long-term future of the league into jeopardy as the governing body continues to slash central funding.

The RFU has confirmed Championship sides will this season receive just £80,000 – a staggering reduction of £455,000 per club from two years ago – and substantially less than the halving of funding to pre-2016 levels of £288,000 per season, which was agreed last February.

Biljon has also voiced the concerns that potential England internationals would go part-time or quit the game unless the RFU reversed its decisions.

He said: ‘With the support that is currently given from the RFU we’re never going to bridge a gap. It looks like there is more of an intention to make that gap bigger rather than bridge the current gap – that’s what it feels like.

‘The Championship is an invaluable competition. I think it supports the Premiership as well as both the Pro14 and international rugby for players. Any rugby supporter who comes to watch a Championship game would be impressed by the standard and the ability of the players out there, so
I would like to see it supported accordingly.

‘Jersey and so many clubs could benefit. This isn’t just about Jersey but this is for all the Championship clubs like Nottingham, Cornish Pirates or Bedford. I think the promotion thing, the move to 13 teams and all the rest of it, just doesn’t look good.’

On top of the funding cuts, UK-based tier-two clubs are stumping up for their own Covid-19 testing programme at a cost of nearly £80,000, while not receiving any of the government’s £9m ‘winter survival’ grant funding.

The only support available is in the form of long-term loans – an approach which resulted in Championship stalwarts London Scottish mothballing themselves until 2021/22.

Biljon added: ‘This country will not benefit from having just one professional tier of rugby. They are trying to divide the sport between the professional and the community game, you need a way to support both and to bridge them together. You don’t want potential international players to slip through the net, you need somewhere for them to play.

RFU officials insist previous Championship funding levels did not represent a good investment.

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