TheLocalYokel

Honorary Member Of Forums4airports
Jan 14, 2009
16,588
343
Wurzel Country
IMPORTANT!! To reduce spam, we request that you make a post soon after completing your registration. We request you keep your account active by posting regularly. Inactive accounts risk being deleted.
Yes
Ring-fencing the Prem is back on the agenda. I remember Martin Johnson, the former England rugby captain, writng in favour of the idea in his autobiography probably at least a decade ago.

The current idea is to suspend promotion from and relegation to the English Championship for at least four years, perhaps a lot longer. The plan has perhaps surprisingly gained ther support of all the current Championship clubs and will now be presented to the Rugby Football Union and the Permiership clubs.

It's envisaged that the Championship will become an England player development hub and Premiership academies would cease. The mainly English players would be centrally contracted to the Championship and each year would become available to Premiership clubs via an annual draft system.

Automatic promotion/relegation would be replaced at some point after 2025 by a Promotion and Relegation Commission chaired by a QC that would decide whether any Prem club's ongoing performance merited demotion or a Championsship club's performance merited promotion.

Currently clubs have to have a ground that meets Premiership standards before being allowed into the top tier. It's not made clear whether that will still apply with the Commission - presumably it will.

Cornwall is a hotbed of rugby union, arguably the most rugby-orientated area of England, but it has no Prem club. Its main club Cornish Pirates struggles to find a suitable ground for the top tier.

Prem club owners believe that certainty of tenure will enable them to invest more confidently in their club. I presume that when Saracens return to the Prem at the end of next season after their huge points deduction and demotion to the Championship the Prem will be increased by one club to 13 with no relegation in 2021 and beyond.

Not being able to develop their own players through Prem academies might be a sticking point for many Prem clubs. Instead they will have to rely on young players developed via an outside source who will join Prem clubs via a draft.

Ring-fencing does not excite me but I would have to wait to see how things turn out in practice before coming to a defining conclusion.

 
Interesting! I suppose it will give stability in these uncertain times and could be the prelude to a British and Irish league.
The draft system is an interesting proposal. I'd imagine that the Championship would get compensation for any player drafted into a Prem team.

With reference to the Cornish Pirates, I believe that the Bedford Blues owner is on record saying that the amount of investment needed to gain promotion in upgrading their ground was too much considering that there was no guarantee of promotion via the former playoff system.
 
Worcester Warriors had problems when first promoted, and have been struggling in premiership. They now have an excellent stadium ideally located off M5 motorway and are stabilising, was it incentive enough knowing promotion is assured on winning championship and meeting criteria for premiership? Ring fencing offers little by way of a big prize other than the potential votes of Will Carling's favourite people.

I cannot see the likes of Leeds United tolerating such a scheme after so long in the lower leagues so why should those striving within Rugby Union to achieve excellence accept such a scheme?
 
  • Thread starter
  • Admin
  • #4
Interesting! I suppose it will give stability in these uncertain times and could be the prelude to a British and Irish league.
The draft system is an interesting proposal. I'd imagine that the Championship would get compensation for any player drafted into a Prem team.

With reference to the Cornish Pirates, I believe that the Bedford Blues owner is on record saying that the amount of investment needed to gain promotion in upgrading their ground was too much considering that there was no guarantee of promotion via the former playoff system.
The only option for Pirates would be to play home games at Plymouth Argyle's Home Park which might not sit well with the dedicated Kernow as it would be a move out of the county, or even the country to some.

Martin Johnson's idea was to exclude Bristol from a ring-fenced Premiership as the club was in the Championship at the time. He accepted it would be controversial but he wanted a wider geographical spread. I doubt that he would have been of the same view had Leicester been temporarily out of the Prem at the time.

The draft system is in place in a number of American sports I believe. I'm not sure whether only up-and-coming players are drafted in the USA or whether star players can also feature. I'm not a follower of American sport.

Ring-fencing will certainly stifle the ambitions of a club like Pirates if only for a few years. It's a shame because I've long thought that a Cornish club would be a great asset to the Prem.
 
The draft system is in place in a number of American sports I believe. I'm not sure whether only up-and-coming players are drafted in the USA or whether star players can also feature. I'm not a follower of American sport.
Its senior college graduates who are drafted. I believe other players can be traded during the draft along with draft picks but only players from college sports can be drafted.

Playing in Devon/England wouldn't be welcome I'd have thought in Cornwall.
 
  • Thread starter
  • Admin
  • #6
Worcester Warriors had problems when first promoted, and have been struggling in premiership. They now have an excellent stadium ideally located off M5 motorway and are stabilising, was it incentive enough knowing promotion is assured on winning championship and meeting criteria for premiership? Ring fencing offers little by way of a big prize other than the potential votes of Will Carling's favourite people.

I cannot see the likes of Leeds United tolerating such a scheme after so long in the lower leagues so why should those striving within Rugby Union to achieve excellence accept such a scheme?
I agree with the thrust of the points that you are making.

The answer seems to be that the authorities believe that currently there is no club outside the 13 Premiership Rugby shareholders (the 12 clubs in the Prem next season plus Saracens) likely to have the wherewithal with which to succeed in the Prem. Year after year the club that is relegated to the Championship bounces straight back to the Prem the following season, such is the gulf between the Premiership and the Championship. It's all a bit farcical which a ring-fenced Prem would avoid.

That of course ignores the possibility of a very rich person or organisation arriving on the scene prepared to invest a lot of money into a Championship club.

After 2025 the Promotion and Relegation Commission would address a permanent ring-fencing but that would seem to be promotion or relegation decided in a committee room rather than on the field.

Some of the established Prem clubs were not of the first order for much of the last century (Worcester, Exeter and even Sale for example) and former giants such as Coventry have endured hard times for many years since professionalism replaced 'shamateurism' in the latter half of the previous century. That being so there is every likelihood that another 'smaller' club could emerge in the future to realistically compete in the Prem and it is essential that machinery exists for that to happen.
 
That of course ignores the possibility of a very rich person or organisation arriving on the scene prepared to invest a lot of money into a Championship club.
The problem is that unlike France England has never seriously tried to develop a strong fully professional second teir. I'm pretty sure that Pro D2 gets a cut of the Top14 TV deal.
In a way although ring fencing might be a good idea now it actually in my opinion should be classed as a big failure for English rugby in general.
 
  • Thread starter
  • Admin
  • #8
The problem is that unlike France England has never seriously tried to develop a strong fully professional second teir. I'm pretty sure that Pro D2 gets a cut of the Top14 TV deal.
In a way although ring fencing might be a good idea now it actually in my opinion should be classed as a big failure for English rugby in general.
I've never been quite sure of the aims of the English Premiership. It seems that the primary reason for its existence is to benefit its member clubs - its shareholders.

Until 1987 there was no formal league in England - the RFU thought that it would somehow sully the ethos of amateur sport, which was a bit of a joke given that the top clubs effectively paid many of their players, either with 'boot money' or by finding a well-paid job outside the sport often through the good offices of businessmen club members.

There had been a national knock-out cup competition for clubs from the early 70s. Before 1987 English clubs arranged their own fixtures and many were traditional such as the great rivalries between the likes of Bristol, Bath and Gloucester with the big South Wales clubs. Some newspapers published unofficial merit tables based on the club fixtures.

In 1987 a major league was sanctioned but strictly on an amateur ('shamateur') basis - what we know as today's Premiership. It wasn't until 1996 that rugby union in England turned professional.

I've looked up the clubs who have been in the top tier but are no longer. There are 15 of them: Bedford, Coventry, Leeds (now Yorkshire Carnegie), Liverpool St Helens, London Scottish, London Welsh, Moseley, Nottingham, Orrell, Richmond, Rosslyn Park, Rotherham, Rugby, Waterloo and West Hartlepool. Many spent all or most of their time in the top tier during the amateur era.

The current 13 Premier Rugby shareholders have for the most part a long history of participation at that level:

33 seasons - Bath, Wasps, Gloucester, Leicester (every season since inception)
32 seasons - Harlequins
29 seasons - Saracens
28 seasons - Northampton
27 seasons - Sale
25 seasons - London Irish
22 seasons - Bristol, Newcastle
14 seasons - Worcester
10 seasons - Exeter

Of the clubs no longer in tier 1, Orrell spend the longest period there - 10 seasons, but nearly all in the amateur era.

The Rugby Union might want a development system for young England players but I'm not sure about the club owners. Bristol Bears' billionaire owner, Steve Lansdown, has pumped in tens of millions in the past few years including a state-of-the-art training centre that is about to be opened. Part of the rationale is the development of young players, with head coach Pat Lam's stated preference for England-qualified youngsters. If club academies are to be closed the major clubs will be relying on centrally produced young players who they won't automatically 'own' as of right as they do with young players they currently develop themselves.

I suppose it's all down to club versus country. With football many fans would put club success before England success. I sense that, in rugby, country might assume more importance with English rugby followers than it does with many of their round ball counterparts.
 
Part of the rationale is the development of young players, with head coach Pat Lam's stated preference for England-qualified youngsters.
I believe that if the English Prem clubs play English qualified players for a specified amount of time they get funding from the RFU so they have the incentive to develop the players. Of course if it changes and the Championship clubs essentially become the development side of English rugby it'll be curious to see if they opt to invest in more foreign players.
 
The wish of many in the top echelons of English rugby has now been granted with the decision announced today that relegation from the Premiership and Championship will not occur at the end of the current season. They've used the excuse that Covid has disrupted the season with games cancelled and league points awarded arbitrarily (my description) as a result. The top team in the Championship (no prizes for saying Saracens even though the Championship season is yet to begin) will be promoted which will lead to an additional team (the thirteenth) in the Premiership next season.

The Premiership's contracted tv company (BT Sport) was apparently against the idea but has been assured that it will be for this season only.

If and when relegation resumes (I say if because the BBC reports that according to Rugby Union sources this ring-fencing might last for three or four years) it seems the minimum standards criteria required (ground, resources, financial strength for example) for promotion to the Premiership will be tightened. Already there aren't many Championship clubs that meet current criteria. If they are made more stringent there will be even fewer, although the consultation with all stakeholders in the next few months to decide a new approach will amongst other things investigate new funding methods.

A major argument in support of ring-fencing in the past has revolved around owners having the confidence to invest in their club for the long term without fear of seeing their investment diluted if their club is relegated to the Championship. Against that, much of the excitement generated by leagues, whether rugby or football, has to do with not only winning promotion or being league champions but ensuring that your club is not relegated.

If there are no 'relegation battles' many fans will feel they are missing out on an important aspect of the game.

That said, I'm not sure how the Pro-14 league operates. I stand to be corrected but I don't think there is automatic promotion or relegation each season.
 
That said, I'm not sure how the Pro-14 league operates. I stand to be corrected but I don't think there is automatic promotion or relegation each season.
The Pro14 is more like a franchise league than a club league so no promotion or relegation and it uses a conference system now and will eventually become the Pro16 with the addition of the South African former Super Rugby sides.
 
Not precisely on topic in this thread but close enough not to begin another thread is the way the Premiership decides its champion club each season.

In a weekend of Euro2020, international cricket and the run-up to Wimbledon, Harlequins beating Exeter Chiefs in yesterday’s play-off final to become Premiership Champions might have crept under the radar a bit.

Having staged an amazing come-back against Bristol Bears in a play-off semi-final the previous weekend when they overcame a 0-28 deficit to eventually force extra time and ultimately a win, Quins scored two late tries to beat the Chiefs in another high-scoring and pulsating match.

Some people question the validity of the play-off system and I am one.

Premiership teams play a full league season of matches in which every other team is played home and away. It might be thought reasonable and logical if the team winning most match points by the end of the season to finish at the top of the league should be seen as the champions.

That was once the case but since 2002 the Premiership has gone down the play-off route.

My contention is that the true champions are the team that is most successful after a long season, not the one that comes out top in a mini knock-out competition at the end of the season, and no-one can doubt Harlequins deserved to win the play-offs, but should they have been there in the first place?

In the league season Quins finished in fourth position 14 points behind the team at the top, Bristol Bears, and 11 points behind the second-placed team, Exeter Chiefs. Quins won four few matches than either the Bears or the Chiefs.

Some might say that Quins are champions on merit because they beat both Bears and Chiefs in the play-offs. The counter to that is that in the league season Quins lost home and away to the Bears and to the Chiefs.

I wonder what people would say if football’s Premier League operated in this way. In the season that ended a few weeks ago Manchester City finished top and were rightly regarded as champions. They had 86 points. The fourth-placed side was Chelsea with 67 points and eight fewer wins than Manchester City. If the top four had then played off to decide the championship and Chelsea had won the play-offs would they really have been regarded as true champions by anyone outside the club and its many supporters? I doubt it very much.

The argument is sometimes put in favour of the rugby Premiership play-off system that, unlike football where there are international breaks and clubs don’t lose players for internationals, Premiership rugby carries on during the autumn internationals and Six Nations leaving club teams weakened. However, most clubs are affected, certainly those likely to be challenging at the top of the league, so it probably evens itself out in broad terms.
 
Forgive please my ignorance but I always thought any play off was to separate teams with identical records and cannot be settled any other reasonable way.
Football uses the play-off system to determine which teams outside those promoted automatically should also be promoted. In the Championship and League One teams in positions three to six in the final league table play off to decide which team should join the first and second teams (automatically promoted) in the division above in the following season. League Two and the National League also use play-offs to determine promoted teams outside those promoted automatically but numbers vary slightly compared with the Championship and League One.

Sometimes inequities are thrown up when for example team six wins the play-off competition having finished many points behind team three in the regular season.

Football uses the excuse that it is for financial reasons as it keeps the season alive for much longer for more teams. Prior to the play-offs being introduced in football over 30 years ago mid-table teams would be playing a lot of 'dead' matches in the last quarter of a season as they were unlikely to be promoted or relegated, hence the interest in such matches tended to diminish with reduced attendances.

The English Rugby Premiership decides its champions with a play-off between the top four clubs in the league at the end of the regular season.

One of the silliest uses of play-offs used to occur in the English Rugby Championship (the second tier). The 12 clubs in that league would play a regular league season of 22 matches, playing each opponent home and away. The top eight then played off to determine which one would be promoted to the Premiership and the bottom four would play off to determine which team would be relegated to the league below.
 
The English Rugby Premiership decides its champions with a play-off between the top four clubs in the league at the end of the regular season.
It's more something adopted from the American sports model rather than the traditional straight league. I think it has merits in that in prevents a lot of dead rubbers at the end of the season but i things that people find exciting a lot of the time about leagues is title races at the end of season. Playoffs tend to suit multi group leagues like the Pro14 soon to be Pro16.
 
The RFU has announced changes to the Premiership from the end of the 2021-2022 season which will in effect mean that the proposed ring-fencing with no relegation will be a temporary measure. The changes are an attempt to deal with the financial burden resulting from the pandemic.

At the end of the 2021-2022 season the Premiership will expand to 14 clubs - 12 last season but there will be 13 in 2021-2022 because there was no relegation from the Prem this year whilst Saracens won promotion back to the top level from the Championship.

There will be revised minimum standards criteria for clubs wishing to be promoted, which I take to mean less onerous standards,

In season 2022-2023 no side will be relegated from or promoted to the Premiership.

At the end of season 2023-2024 there will be a play-off between the bottom Prem club and winner of the Championship (provided that club meets the revised minimum standards) to decide which club plays in the Prem the following season.

From season 2024/2025, the intention is to have promotion and relegation between the Prem & Championship on the one club up and one club down basis, as has been the case for many years.

From August 2024 each Prem club's match day squad must include at least 15 England-qualified players, and there will be an end to the foreign player rule which will give clubs greater flexibility to select non-England qualified players of any nationality
 

Upload Media

Upgrade Your Account

Subscribe to help support your favourite forum and in return we'll remove all our advertisements. Your contribution will help to pay for things like site maintenance, domain name renewals and annual server charges.



Forums4aiports
Subscribe

NEW - Profile Posts

Jon Dempsey wrote on HPsauce's profile.
Hi, I was born and lived in B36 for a long time - Lindale Avenue, just around the corner from Hodge Hill Comp.
I just noticed your postcode on a post.

Do you still live in the area?
survived a redundancy scenario where I work for the 2nd time
If you’re tired of takeoffs, you’re tired of life.
49 trips undertaken last year. First done this year which was to North Wales where surprisingly the only slippery surfaces were in Conwy with the castle and it's walls closed due to the ice.
Aviador wrote on SNOWMAN's profile.
Thanks for the support @SNOWMAN

Trending Hashtags

Advertisement

Back
Top Bottom
  AdBlock Detected
Sure, ad-blocking software does a great job at blocking ads, but it also blocks some useful and important features of our website. For the best possible site experience please take a moment to disable your AdBlocker.