RFU need to buy keys to Premiership
THE PREMIERSHIP owners will meet today to decide whether to accept a £275million buyout from a venture capital company CVC for a 51 per cent share in their league. It will be rejected. If they are to cede control, it will take more than that to hand over the keys.
But the very fact such a proposal has reached the agenda has pointed the way to the alternative takeover that, to coin a phrase, could make England great again. The Twickenham buyout.
It was a Leicester board member who suggested it, Ben Kay. Why, he pondered, sell out to a faceless organisation whose only interest is in making money when, with a little imagination and flexibility on both sides, the RFU might become the majority shareholder instead?
The more you look at the idea, the more it makes sense. Player access and player welfare – the grinding tectonic plates of the game in England – would be dealt with at a stroke.
The key attraction if the RFU bought control of the Premiership would be that they would finally have control over the top players. They missed the boat when the game turned professional in failing to tie down the elite individuals, but this moment offers them a second chance.
It would cost the RFU a pretty penny to trump the CVC offer at a time when there is belt-tightening going on at Twickenham but it offers chief executive Steve Brown the chance to show some vision. The long-term benefits for England would be enormous.
For the clubs, there would be more security in selling to the Union whose motives would – in theory at least – revolve around the good of the game rather than a faceless company who could demand what they wanted and sell on to literally anyone.
The main attraction, though, would be hard cash. For all the trumpeted success of the Premiership – with crowds healthy and rising, a decent domestic TV deal and a new title sponsor on board – the 12 clubs will lose about £25m-£30m between them this season.
Such an important change would require a unanimous vote of approval among the 12 Premiership clubs plus London Irish, the other shareholder in the organisation.
Unanimity is hard enough to find on what type of biscuits to serve at their meetings, let alone in something as contentious as selling out to the RFU. It would be too much to ask them to think of the bigger picture. But think about the bottom line instead. This could be a win-win.
This is a second chance