Why do the RFU give clubs money?

Why do the RFU give clubs money? 

The RFU give the Premiership money for one reason only and that is to have extra access to their English qualified players for internationals. 

The important word here is extra as they already have a right to them for internationals and a fixed number of training days under World Rugby laws.  The RFU are paying for extra training time in the hope that this makes them better players, capable of winning the Six Nations and World Cup nad therefore bring in extra money into the game.  

In recent seasons this plan has definitely failed. 

My calculations show over the 8 year current PRL deal this is costing £550,000 per international player. 

It is immaterial to the RFU whether all 50 play for one club or are divided across the Premiership, they are still paying it. The beneficiaries are the Premiership clubs as a whole - and I understand they pool this money anyway. 

 £  220,000,000.00 full amout of PRL deal over 8 years

 £    27,500,000.00 per year 

50 players called up for England training on average = 

 £          550,000.00 per player per year

And if we break it down to per international - say 12 a season, then it is £46k approx.  That is additional to the RFU match fee.   

By giving clubs this amount of money it has created wage inflation - and wages are the biggest cost to any club.  

The current PRL deal means that England, unless under special circumstances, have to pick players from the Premiership clubs, which gives them a strong bargaining chip. 

People claim the the Premierships deserve this money as they are the ones who are developing the players - but this isn't a clear cut argument as a lot of the player development may have taken place at other clubs - we all know examples of how a player developed by being on loan to a Championship club. But do those clubs receive any additional revenue for player development? No is the simple answer.

Therefore should the RFU money to the clubs be split in a more complex way? When a player represents England, should all his former clubs receive some compensation for his development, rather than his existing Premiership receiving it all?

It would be a fairer distribution of money allowing those clubs who play a part in a players development to receive some compensation for their efforts and encourage other clubs to further English players development in preference to overseas players as they may eventually receive a financial benefit in the future. 

Yes.

Will there be sandwiches? And can you confirm that the Kingdom of God hasn't gone over-budget on it's West Stand? I so hate disappointing surprises.

Amen

Thanks for the laugh (s).

Personally I'd love the RFU to go back to only having access to the players 6 days before a test match and actually getting to see them play for their club, I'd love for people to see what would happen if the clubs did fold their academies up to what they actually want to run because the RFU wasn't paying them to run uneconomically big ones.

I'd love the clubs to test regulation 9 in court and most likely win a massive chunk of their season back.

I doubt the England first crowd would like to see the mess at Twickenham that produced.

Baron's report is interesting reading.  Principally it highlights how the RFU executive have sold off their matchday hospitality income to Compass & their TV revenue to CVC.  This will leave them with no money for the amateur game at all. But people will, in all seriousness, think that this group is competent to do anything in future and should get their hands on even more family jewels to flog off.

The RFU needs total reform and effective dissolution into at least three totally separate organisations, one to run the amateur game with new regional groupings taking over the county boards, one to run the national leagues (which already exists in the NCA really), and one to take over running of the pro game in its entirety with PRL & Championship groupings being folded into a new organisation that runs the professional game as a coherent entity.

Ironically it was one of Baron's predecessors who was proposing something similar in 1997, but that was kyboshed by the county unions refusing to yield their  power.