‘Old farts’ to be axed in radical RFU shake-up

The Rugby Football Union Council, once described by former England captain Will Carling as “57 old farts”, is likely to be abolished as part of a radical shake-up of English rugby’s governing body.

Barely a month after Bill Sweeney, the RFU chief executive, survived a vote of no confidence at a special general meeting, a proposal has been announced in which the council, the traditional conscience of the English game, will be scrapped.

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The Governance and Representation Review Group, chaired by Malcolm Wharton CBE, proposes two new governance models which include no place for the traditional council. In the first model, “game representation” would be embedded within all decision-making bodies and in the second a “national advisory group” would be established, although its role towards the board would be purely advisory.

This would leave the RFU executive, headed by Sweeney, and the board in complete control of the English game in what amounts to a stunning power grab. As well as surviving the vote of no confidence by 66 per cent, Sweeney won a second vote at the SGM promising a governance review, including devolution of powers to the regions, by an 80 per cent majority, which has been interpreted as a mandate to press ahead with radical reform.

The RFU will now launch a nationwide consultation with its members on Wharton’s report which has been published after a year-long fact-finding mission. The report found that the current governance model was “overly complex” and suffered from “slow decision-making”, lacked transparency, was not sufficiently diverse and representative, created more administration and was ambiguous on the power split between board and council.

In the foreword to his report, Wharton wrote: “I believe few in the game would dispute that the RFU’s current decision-making structure is complex, slow and, at times, frustrating. A review of the RFU’s governance and representation is, therefore, both timely and essential. It presents an opportunity to create a more progressive, inclusive and agile governance structure with enhanced transparency.”

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The consultation period will last until June 30 at which point the review group will make its final recommendations to go to the 63-strong council, which could effectively approve its own demise. Even if it rejects the proposal, the RFU board is likely to demand an SGM, which would be a requirement of such a governance change anyway.

One member of the review panel, Ed Warner, who is the chair of GB Wheelchair Rugby and a former chair of UK Athletics, also wrote in support of the proposal, describing the current model as a “dysfunctional framework, effectively established back in the 19th century, that is clearly unfit for the modern era.”

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