Premiership Rugby’s bid to increase the size of the top flight to 14 clubs and suspend relegation for an unspecified number of seasons forms a cornerstone of its negotiations with Twickenham over a new elite-player agreement.
Any change to replace the deal that runs out next year would have to be agreed by the Rugby Football Union’s 60-strong council.
The Premiership has resisted calls in the past decade to go up from 12 to 14, not least because each club’s share of central funds would drop, but the change in the way the European Cup is organised has had a significant effect. Other factors to be considered include a new television deal with BT Sport, which kicks in from the 2016‑17 season and is worth significantly more than the present contract, together with the extra income that will come with the new elite-player agreement. This will lead to considerably more money for all, even with two extra sides.
The Premiership board has been split in the past couple of years over the issue of the salary cap. Some, like Saracens, want it to be abolished, saying it is a barrier to competing with money-soaked French clubs. Others, like Northampton and Leicester, want it increased regularly.
A suspension to relegation would help clubs who have become used to competing in the bottom half of the table and make them more likely to support a cap far higher than the £5.1m it will be set at next season. Premiership Rugby’s policy is to grow it in line with central funds, which from the season after next will be much higher.
“The game is growing significantly and its rate is such that we are looking at plans for expansion on a number of fronts,” said Mark McCafferty, the chief executive of Premiership Rugby. “The size of the league is one of them. We think it might be possible to develop the league in a way that includes one or two more clubs in terms of the competition. We know there are sensitivities around that but it is a basis for putting strength into the English game.
“You need time to prepare to be a Premiership club and to be competitive on all fronts, on and off the field. One of the more attractive ideas that has been mooted in the past is that perhaps there is a period of time during which there is no relegation and we expand the league carefully during that two or three-year period.”
Clubs use the example this season of London Welsh, who on Monday sacked their head coach, Justin Burnell, replacing him with Rowland Phillips, with relegation set to be mathematically confirmed in the next round of matches. The Exiles have not won a match all season and have conceded 50 points or eight times in the league after beating Bristol to promotion.
London Welsh, who will this season receive £3m less from central funds than established clubs, are challenging the way money is allocated, but a ring-fenced Premiership would lead to more equal funding. How the extra places would be awarded – would the bottom club stay up and the top two in the Championship be promoted? – is for the negotiation table, but at this stage it is difficult to see Premiership Rugby’s plan being agreed by the RFU.
The union has just agreed a new, five-year funding deal with the Championship clubs that will give the 12 a 40% increase. Their chairman, Geoff Irvine, said it was agreed on the basis of the status quo and if the second tier as a group came out against expansion and an end to relegation, no matter how temporary, it is highly unlikely the RFU Council, which represents the grassroots, would defy them.
Premiership Rugby believes the Championship should be given time and resources to grow, with only Bristol, Worcester and Leeds among its ranks having survived in the Premiership, and then not for long enough. What the next few months will show is how much the top-flight clubs, many of whose owners are becoming more strident and demanding as the economic climate improves, will use the issue to play hard with the RFU over a new player agreement.
The England head coach gets the time with his players he wants under the agreement – in return for the RFU paying a large amount of money – and he may get more latitude over how often he is allowed to change his squad with a ring-fenced Premiership. The clubs, buoyed by their victory in Europe, are ready for a long debate and are bent on victory.
