RELEGATION SUSPENDED UNTIL 2024-25?

[Crofty]

Here's a few radical ideas -

RFU to only pay compensation to clubs for use of players but not pay the actual players, as I'm sure they don't lose any of their club salary while with England. This would save a minimum of £2.4 million which could give each championship side an extra £200,000.

While every little helps, will £200,000 a year do much to bring the Championship clubs up to the level required for Premiership survival?

End parachute payments to ensure a more level playing field in the Championship, if this means players having break clauses in contracts then so be it.

This could cause chaos, not that this is necessarily a bad thing, but once a few years of exoduses have happened, and the top players from the usual suspects at the bottom of the table have found new permanent homes in teams more solidly in the safer latitudes of the table then every year you'd have probably the same 5 to 10 players swapping between the relegated team and the promoted team which seems a bad idea to me.

Link the salary cap to clubs average match day income.

Well as the top rated club for home game attendance (excluding days out to Twickers that get counted for some reason) we would say that, wouldn't we?

[johnthegriff]

Quite simply the RFU mandarins have to get off their backsides and find the money or investors to finance asecond tier of professional rugby. There are too few people playing and watching our game, the Premiership is available to only a few geographic locations and with ringfencing that will remain, a realistic competition for promotion will bring in new fans, achieving the higher status with international players visiting will increase the gate at promoted clubs. I believe ring fencing will eventually see a move to amalgamated regional teams as in Wales with small crowds as supporters remain true to their Principality side rather than the artificially created province. Of course many fans abandon rugby altogether and switch to soccer with divisional leagues, promotion and relegation.

[BFG]

Quite simply the RFU mandarins have to get off their backsides and find the money or investors to finance asecond tier of professional rugby. There are too few people playing and watching our game, the Premiership is available to only a few geographic locations and with ringfencing that will remain, a realistic competition for promotion will bring in new fans, achieving the higher status with international players visiting will increase the gate at promoted clubs. I believe ring fencing will eventually see a move to amalgamated regional teams as in Wales with small crowds as supporters remain true to their Principality side rather than the artificially created province. Of course many fans abandon rugby altogether and switch to soccer with divisional leagues, promotion and relegation.

A lot of folk believe regional club rugby will never happen in England but all it will take is the bubble to burst.
The biggest risk in ring fencing is in the competition itself as it has been shown that certain people don't place overall long term interests over their own short term interests.
I've long thought that Premiership 2nd/academy teams could be in divisional leagues with Championship, National One and National Two clubs.
Four divisional leagues separated into North, Midlands, South East and South West.
Semi-Final play offs and a Final involving the four divisional league winners.
If a Premiership 2nd/academy team wins it then no promotion to the Premiership that season, otherwise the winner has the choice IF they meet the criteria, potential promotion (maybe a play off with bottom Prem club) or the status quo.
Everything below should be fully amateur.
Grow links and grow the strength of the game, keep travelling costs down, provide a genuine league season for aspiring youngsters to be involved in and make it more easily accessible to everyone.

[Dokie]

Quite simply the RFU mandarins have to get off their backsides and find the money or investors to finance asecond tier of professional rugby. There are too few people playing and watching our game, the Premiership is available to only a few geographic locations and with ringfencing that will remain, a realistic competition for promotion will bring in new fans, achieving the higher status with international players visiting will increase the gate at promoted clubs. I believe ring fencing will eventually see a move to amalgamated regional teams as in Wales with small crowds as supporters remain true to their Principality side rather than the artificially created province. Of course many fans abandon rugby altogether and switch to soccer with divisional leagues, promotion and relegation.

A lot of folk believe regional club rugby will never happen in England but all it will take is the bubble to burst.
The biggest risk in ring fencing is in the competition itself as it has been shown that certain people don't place overall long term interests over their own short term interests.
I've long thought that Premiership 2nd/academy teams could be in divisional leagues with Championship, National One and National Two clubs.
Four divisional leagues separated into North, Midlands, South East and South West.
Semi-Final play offs and a Final involving the four divisional league winners.
If a Premiership 2nd/academy team wins it then no promotion to the Premiership that season, otherwise the winner has the choice IF they meet the criteria, potential promotion (maybe a play off with bottom Prem club) or the status quo.
Everything below should be fully amateur.
Grow links and grow the strength of the game, keep travelling costs down, provide a genuine league season for aspiring youngsters to be involved in and make it more easily accessible to everyone.

This makes a lot of sense.

[Billb]

Having just had chaos in the football world regarding the European super league, rugby feels that ring fencing the premiership is justified by the owners club. The argument that it protects the investment by a select few owners is no different to the greed shown by the football elite to the detriment of the fans. The argument that playing in Europe is all the competition that is needed is fallacious at best. All teams are guaranteed European rugby, and when you look at the Celtic league, the standard has been falling year on year because it doesn’t matter where you finish. Note that the national dailies are not remotely interested in the rugby fans !
The second argument must be what happens to the championship teams. Ealing will not see any point in playing professional rugby as there is no reward for coming top of the league. They will revert to amateur rugby or semi pro at best. Premier teams currently loan players to the championship teams to give them good quality rugby. Will this happen if the championship is amateur?
Finally, where do the players of the future come from? Current trends are that premier teams go abroad for new players. South Africa teams are providing the bulk of new players in the league. What will happen to the national team ? We have seen it in football where England looks poor because too many premier players are from all around the world.

[kk20gb30]

Decision on relegation delayed :

https://inews.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/p ... TO=newsnow