Cornish Pirates Executive Urges Government Scrutiny of RFU

Sally Pettipher, chief executive of Cornish Pirates, a club that placed second in the Championship last season, is pressing the government to investigate demands for a leadership alteration within the Rugby Football Union. The Pirates, alongside the other eleven clubs in the Championship, the sport’s second tier, have requested a vote of no confidence concerning RFU chief executive Bill Sweeney and chairman Tom Ilube. Their dissatisfaction stems from Sweeney receiving a bonus amounting to £358,000, even as the RFU reported an unprecedented operating loss approaching £40 million. Sweeney, whose overall compensation reached £1.1 million, was among six executives who collectively received £1.3 million in bonuses, occurring concurrently with the union’s decision to make over 40 employees redundant. Funding provided by the RFU to Championship clubs has seen a reduction from £650,000 prior to the Covid-19 pandemic to approximately £150,000. Pettipher informed BBC Sport, stating: “One of the reasons for this extraordinary rise in his salary was for taking a pay cut in Covid.” She continued: “I’m going ‘so you have recovered from Covid perfectly happily, while your decision-making has crucified our club’.” Pettipher added: “That matter of money has become what feels like a moral case as well as just a financial case.” In reply, the RFU communicated to BBC Sport: “The RFU ends this latest four-year cycle with a strong balance sheet, no debt, a robust cash position and positive profit-and-loss reserves.” The RFU further stated: “We always see losses in a Rugby World Cup year due to fewer home games and increased costs associated with attending the RWC. These revenue impacts were anticipated, planned for and are in line with expectations.” They also commented: “The RFU has continued to invest strategically in the game at all levels and for the last two years the RFU has been working hard to develop a redesigned Championship with the aim of developing a whole-game solution to support the development of England Rugby.” The RFU elaborated: “The objective has been to create a second tier that supports the English rugby system by developing young English talent, whilst supporting the clubs to become financially sustainable by growing local audiences, improving standards, and increasing the value of the league.” Their statement concluded: “Significant research has been undertaken and external independent advice sought to underpin the strategy. Minimum standards have been proposed along with increased RFU funding and a mechanic for promotion and relegation with tiered capacities for entry into the Premiership and a governance structure to give greater self-determination.” This season, the Cornish Pirates have experienced defeats against Premiership Rugby Cup top-flight teams Gloucester and Exeter. In September, the RFU finalized a new arrangement with the ten top-tier clubs, allocating £33 million annually among them and establishing a promotion play-off between the Premiership’s lowest-ranked team and the Championship winners. However, no funding agreement has been reached for the second tier, with Pettipher noting that prior to Covid-19, RFU contributions covered approximately one-third of the Pirates’ budget. The club, based in Penzance, is presently seeking fresh investment following the withdrawal of funding by long-standing benefactor Dicky Evans, which occurred after the Pirates abandoned their plans for a new stadium in Truro. Pettipher asserts that the RFU’s leadership concentrates excessively on the sport’s elite segment, to the detriment of rugby overall. She stated, prior to handing a copy of a letter from the club to the RFU to her local MP in Westminster: “It’s not exclusively a remit to win England matches and fill Twickenham, but that is the remit that is working at Twickenham – a little binary planet system around that.” She continued: “The legal structure of the RFU is a union of member clubs across England, and the argument is by creating more money here you support the game.” Pettipher questioned: “That’s fine except the money is going backwards and forwards between an ivory tower elite of Premiership clubs, England teams and then Twickenham. When is it coming out to the rest of the pyramid?” Pettipher further remarked: “Imagine this is an environmental argument and we’ve decided we are only going to protect the big beasts.” She elaborated: “We know that if the coral dies, if the bees die, if the trees die, we know in our ecosystem that you need all of this to feed the big beasts.” Pettipher concluded this point by stating: “But that does not appear to be in the leadership thinking of the union, which is responsible to government to govern its sport.” She emphasized: “We are simply one club – we have our own very specific difficulties that better governing decisions and better leadership decisions could rectify tomorrow.” Pettipher concluded her appeal: “I’m asking government to put substantial scrutiny and pressure on their governing body to better govern their game.”