New rugby agreement must provide England team to ‘be proud of’, club CEO says
A new Professional Game Agreement for rugby must have the ultimate aim of improving England’s fortunes, new Gloucester Rugby chief executive Alex Brown has told City A.M.
The deal between clubs and the Rugby Football Union, which dictates salary caps and player release rules among other aspects of how the top flight functions, is due for renegotiation at the end of the season.
“[We need a] Premiership model that’s a fiercely competitive league and it supports the national team,” Brown told Morning Wire
England team to be proud of
“Ultimately the end goal here is to have a really competitive Premiership product that competes in Europe and then produces an international quality team that we can all be proud of. That’s got to be the goal and the intention is there to do that.
“The 10 team league is the start of that and it filters down to the minutiae, the academy set-up, the relationship with the RFU, the new broadcast deal and all these important pieces of the jigsaw puzzle.
“I think we have a far greater understanding of the pressures now and we’ve been through the tough times.”
The Premiership lost three clubs – Worcester Warriors, Wasps and London Irish – last season having struggled its way through the Covid-19 pandemic.
And the sport has been battling with a number of financial issues in recent years.
Brown took over from former chief executive Lance Bradley having steered the club on an interim basis over the summer.
Exciting time
The national team features just one Gloucester player, Jonny May, and the Cherry and Whites have had their number of international participants drop of late.
“The World Cup is here and that’s exciting. We clearly want England to do as well as they can,” Brown added.
“That’s the goal. Hopefully with a bit more consistency we can get that.
“I know [England coach Steve] Borthwick has a big job ahead of him, he’s gone a certain way and picked a team with experience which is what he wants to do and I don’t blame him for doing that.
“But what we need to be fair to him is to give him time like we do with any other senior appointment, we need to give him time to put his mark on things and it’s probably come too soon. We will get there.”
England get their World Cup campaign underway on Saturday against Argentina before matches against Japan, Chile and Samoa.