The Trailfinders won’t be trailblazers next season
Yesterday brought the news that Ealing Trailfinders – who came top of rugby union’s Championship 2021/2022 league table, thereby becoming entitled to be promoted to the Premiership but then were judged by the RFU to have failed to meet the set criteria required, specifically including a minimum ground capacity of 10,000 – had withdrawn their appeal against the decision.
On the face of it the outcome is justifiable because Ealing’s ground Vallis Way has a capacity of only 5,000.
However, the fact is that the English Premiership is practically a closed shop operated for the benefit of the 13 clubs currently in the Premiership.
I’m a bit hazy on the facts here, but my belief is that – even in the days when there were only 12 clubs in the Premiership – the current 13 clubs in the Premiership have always always shareholders in Premiership Rugby Ltd (the organisation running the Premiership).
In other words, contrary to what one might think should/would be the case – i.e. that any Premiership club being relegated would automatically surrender its shareholding in Premiership Rugby, which would then be made available to any Championship club being promoted to the Premiership – the 13 current Premiership clubs have always been effectively operating the equivalent of a stranglehold upon the system.
In short, every time a Premiership club was relegated, it would almost automatically be promoted back into it again the following season, either because it won the Championship (which it was likely to do considering it had better players on its roster than any Championship club could afford or muster), or – alternatively – if it didn’t win the Championship, no Championship club that did win the league could take its place in the Premiership because it wouldn’t meet the set criteria that it must have a 10,000 capacity.
[Let’s leave aside the complication that at some point or another – rather than promotion from the Championship being automatic – there also used to be a “play-off” (home & away) pair of matches between the club finishing bottom of the Premiership and the club finishing top of the Championship … another cute in-built way of “the system” loading the dice against the chances of any Premiership having to suffer the indignity of being relegated].
To compound the “self-serving” impression/actuality further one only has to consider what happened when the Saracens “salary cap” scandal exploded in the media. They were docked about 30 points – which condemned them to relegation – and fined about £5 million.
Nevertheless, the following season, as expected by everyone, Saracens duly won the Championship and were therefore promoted back into the Premiership for the current 2021/2022 season. But – to accommodate this yet also “protect” the 12 Premiership clubs that contested the 2020/2021 Premiership competition, the Premiership was immediately increased in size from 12 clubs to 13 – thus ensuring that no Premiership club would be relegated at the end of it!
And so there we have it.
Promotion and relegation has been part of the DNA of elite English rugby union ever since Noah took a breeding pair of every species of animal and bird, plus two sets of rugby goal posts, aboard his Ark.
The RFU and the Premiership still pay lip service to the principle but in practice – through inertia, hypocrisy and the Premiership clubs’ semi-cartel which (at its heart) for business and self-protection purposes would like to establish itself as a franchise system without promotion or relegation – ever since rugby union went professional in 1995 they have fudged it as much as they can.
Meanwhile English rugby union clubs at Championship and below levels remain fast and true to promotion/relegation simply because “the right of every club to dream” is such a pure and honourable part of the rugby union and human condition.
