RFU proposals to increase the level of professional rugby could have worrying implications for clubs in the lower leagues such as the Preston Grasshoppers.
The funding that is necessary to start a second professional league would have to come from money that the RFU would normally have allocated to a wider range of teams in the lower leagues.
Funding is currently allocated to allow teams to pay officials fees and cover insurance and public liability costs. As a result of the new plans the 12 clubs that participate in the Championship, as it is being called, will receive £2.3 million in RFU core funding instead of the £1.6 million currently paid to National League One.
With the amount of revenue needed to sustain a professional team is considerably more thn the average lower league rugby club is generating. If you look at the lower league of football the teams are attracting crowds of over 2,000, this is the kind of targets that any club making the change to professionalism would have to aim for to be a success. Preston’s closest professional is Sale Sharks, who have been Premiership Champions in recent years and average a crowd of 10,000, but more importantly were given a major cash injection.
The RFU is in danger of losing teams to financial ruin in a bid to turn the game more professional, something that happened with the creation of the Premiership. Also there is concern as to the amount of players that could perform at a professional level and whether he league would be flooded with foreign players and ageing pro’s hindering the development of good young British players with teams needing to put results ahead of performance and development.
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