Clubs Left Out in The Cold By PGL Deal
By Kemboi Robert
The financial future of the Championship, English club rugby’s second tier, is very uncertain according to several of the league’s clubs.
"We are extremely disappointed by the latest developments," said Bedford chief executive, Gareth Alred. "It's hard to swallow the Premiership receiving a per-club increase from just over £2m to £3.3m each, when we have just suffered another blow.
It follows the Professional Game Partnership (PGP) agreed between the Rugby Football Union (RFU) and Premiership Rugby (PRL) for the next eight years.
But Championship clubs – which are not a part of the new deal - will currently each receive their lowest ever sum of £133,000 this season.
"The RFU have made it clear, based on funding, that we Championship clubs remain irrelevant," Mark Lavery, director of rugby at Ampthill told BBC Sport.
"The PGP deal was done between the RFU and PRL and the Championship clubs were excluded from the discussions, so this is not a whole-game solution," he said.
"It's extraordinary when you consider we have had such a vast drop in funding since Covid despite Premiership clubs seeing a massive rise. What does that tell you? We were told it would go back up."
"We have been left out in the cold," said Cambridge chairman Tim Hague.
"The compensation is not adequate and we didn’t think the overall funding would be this low.
"We can survive, but we will have to look at our costs and our investments."
“Currently it appears the support of promotion and relegation is only lip service with the actual detail making it nigh on impossible, not to mention the unequitable funding when you actually reach the top table," said Alred.
"Any additional money we get from the RFU goes on infrastructure not on the development of our playing squad," Ampthill’s Lavery added. "There is still significant uncertainty about the funding of the competition – don’t forget we lost our Champions, Jersey last season."
JUDY ROTICH