RFU

Payment of players return due by 30th June

June 12, 2025 by Bill Hooper

A reminder to clubs concerned that this return needs to be completed by the end of this month.

https://help.rfu.com/support/solutions/articles/103000275565-how-to-complete-payment-of-players

Age Grade Summer Activity Guidelines

June 12, 2025 by Bill Hooper

https://www.englandrugby.com/run/coaching/age-grade-rugby/summer-activity

RFU Community Game Update – June

June 12, 2025 by Bill Hooper

Have your say on how rugby is run

April 30, 2025 by Bill Hooper

Want to become a Female Health Champion?
We are looking for individuals who are passionate about the development of women and girls’ rugby to become Female Health Champions.
The Champions will receive training and resources to enable them to deliver female health workshops to clubs in their area, increasing the knowledge of the specific health needs of female rugby athletes and raising awareness of England Rugby’s female health toolkit for players, coaches, and club volunteers https://www.englandrugby.com/…/female-health-wellbeing
We are currently looking for expressions of interest from those who would like to take part in the project and will then attend one of four training sessions that we will be delivering in June 2025. If you are keen to be included please complete this form by 25th April 2025: https://app.smartsheet.com/b/form/e162ba42fed54704a1095cae117caf61?fbclid=IwY2xjawJ4RIBleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBicmlkETFXYWRPMWthdDFJU0JmaE9CAR679ACU8N5ZcEdmRflkNfaZxTZima77pBpH5BQPklPpuNyDFgUEv2brPeV9pQ_aem_lwkeA7lp7tBYlPgezjgS2w
Expression of interest does not guarantee a place on any of the Champion training courses, we will be in touch with those who have secured a place after the closing date.

Introducing Ian Davies as our 1st Guest Coach for the Cornwall XV Aside Conference

April 24, 2025 by Bill Hooper

Dear Coach,

Following the success of last year’s coaching conference we are pleased to confirm we have scheduled for Saturday 12 July 2025. The invited coaches will be announced in the coming weeks.

Don’t miss out on this fantastic coaching development opportunity.

https://www.coachcentered.com/coach-development

We’re thrilled to announce the first of our guest coaches for the XV Aside Conference at Truro School on Saturday 12th July — Ian Davies, former DoR of Cornish Pirates.

Don’t miss the chance to learn from one of the best! Stay tuned for more announcements.

Click Here to secure your spot and access the early bird conference offer.

Jon Bates

Coach Centered Ltd

07764336709

jonbates@coachcentered.com

www.coachcentered.com

RFU Community Game Update – March

March 13, 2025 by Bill Hooper

Message from Sir Bill Beaumont

March 3, 2025 by Bill Hooper

Message from Sir Bill Beaumont and the RFU Board

Over the last few months, I have been on a nationwide tour to hear the views of you, our members, who are the lifeblood of our sport.  

We’ve visited the length and breadth of the country holding meetings with over 500 people from 400 grassroots member Clubs, Constituent Bodies, Referee Societies and National Representative Bodies, with further meetings planned. 

This has been an incredibly worthwhile tour, and we have heard loud and clear that there are specific areas where you want and need more support from the RFU.

As a result of hearing your feedback we are going to take action in the following areas: 

• Governance Reforms
• Financial Sustainability
• Continued Growth of the Community Game
• Reducing Administrative Burden
• Simplifying and Modernising Competition Structures
• Investment in Community Club Infrastructure
• Improving Communications

More details on all of this can be found here alongside a reminder of our ongoing work and state of play here.

Listening to your feedback the board has also instigated an additional resolution for members to vote on at the Special General Meeting on 27 March.

This relates to the ongoing Governance and Representation Review, which will look at ways to support local areas taking more power of decision making.

The additional motion is:  

Members believe the Governance and Representation Review should be expedited and this should include formal consultation with the wider game.  Proposals (including to address feedback from the roadshows) should be shared before the RFU’s AGM and members are to be further consulted on actions later in the year.

I urge member clubs to vote in favour of this resolution which can bring about meaningful governance change and against the motion that members have no confidence in the Chief Executive Officer (CEO).

Any decision relating to the employment of the CEO is the responsibility of the RFU Board and the Board unanimously supports Bill Sweeney remaining as CEO.  This support is based on his achievements to date, highlighted in the document attached, as well as his ability to deliver the RFU’s strategy while being highly motivated to respond and react to what we have heard from you, our members.   

It is worth remembering that the call for an SGM initially came from the Rugby Football Referees Union and some Championship Clubs. The group who now call themselves the Whole Game Union (WGU) have called into question the integrity of fellow volunteers and suggested highly misleading statements about the RFU.  From our conversations with you, our member clubs, our understanding is that the WGU do not represent the wider views of our game and that we can collaborate effectively to deliver the changes you want.

A vote of no confidence risks sending the Union into paralysis and creating a costly leadership vacuum, especially at a time when we are recruiting a new Chair and when our CEO is spearheading vital commercial and broadcast negotiations that will play a huge role in safeguarding our future financial sustainability.

Details on how to vote can be found here.

I urge you to exercise your right to vote and to vote for meaningful proactive change in relation to governance, by voting against resolution one and for resolution two.

The article here explains the facts and why voting for an expedited Governance and Representation Review would be the right vote for the community game and for rugby in England both on and off the pitch. 

Finally, it is clear from meeting so many of you, that you are all doing incredible work, giving up your free time to make a huge contribution to the English game – on behalf of everyone at the RFU my sincere thank you for what you do.

Sir Bill Beaumont

READ ONLINE >

Update from our roadshow of English Clubs from RFU Board Interim Chair, Sir Bill Beaumont

February 12, 2025 by Bill Hooper

Like me, I know you will have all enjoyed England’s thrilling win over France in the Guinness Men’s Six Nations last weekend and will be looking forward to the Red Roses participating in the Guinness Six Nations and a home Rugby World Cup.

I also recognise that while our national teams always attract the most attention and are used as a barometer for the state of English rugby, the present and future of English rugby is as much in the hands of you – our club administrators and volunteers, our players, match officials, coaches and parents – as it is in the hands of the 23 players in white at Allianz Stadium.

It’s been just over a month since I first wrote to you when I was appointed to the role of Interim Chair of the Rugby Football Union Board and addressed the call for a Special General Meeting (SGM).

In response to the calling of the SGM, I promised to hit the road on a nationwide tour to listen to the concerns, challenges and thoughts of the community game.

We are now around halfway through this nationwide tour. So far, we – myself, RFU President Rob Udwin; Bill Sweeney, our CEO; Steve Grainger, Executive Director Rugby Development; David Roberts, Chair of the Community Game Board; Malcolm Wharton, Chair of the Governance Review Group: Deborah Griffin, Senior Vice President and luminaries of our game such as Jason Leonard and John Inverdale – have held 11 roadshows, eight in person, three virtual and have attended five club visits between roadshows. Representatives of around 250 clubs have attended, and a further seven roadshows are due to take place between now and 20 February.

I thought it would be useful to share some insights we have heard so far. There have been three types of challenges raised – ones that have re-enforced things we were aware of and are addressing; ones we can address easily; and some we did not previously fully understand.

We have heard we need to improve our governance structures, to improve representation from the community game and ensure voices of the community game are heard and involved in decision making. This is something we want too and why we have a Governance and Representation Review underway, however, the feedback we have heard underlines the need for this work to be an absolute priority and for the work to be accelerated.

We hear loud and clear that the communications from the RFU to the community game have not been as clear or consistent as they could be. This letter aims to start to improve that, and I will be providing further updates once the nationwide tour is complete to reflect our desire to engage with you on the big issues facing the community game.

Many of you have mentioned competition structures. We recognise that clubs’ money and volunteers’ time are precious resources and that means there is a need for more decision making around leagues and fixtures at a local level. We will consider appropriate changes which do not compromise the competitiveness of the league system whilst giving greater flexibility around structures and regulations at local level.

Challenges to adult male participation were also raised. This is not a problem unique to rugby as a sport, nor to England as a Union. However, you look to us to lead and it is only right that this is a priority and we want to work with you to address this ensuring our sport stays strong.

You told us the Game Management System (GMS) is challenging and confusing for volunteers administering the game. We already have a significant improvement plan in train for this as part of our wider Digital Transformation strategy. However, we take on board this feedback and will accelerate this, re-enforce the importance of user groups and look to remove some of the lower priority functions within it.

You told us we need to do more to promote rugby in schools and help clubs engage with them and to support more universities to keep players playing. In response to the first of these we have already embarked on a major programme to take T1 Rugby into schools, giving teachers the confidence and support to introduce more young people to the oval ball and ultimately to help them into our clubs, whilst also committing to an investment into School Rugby Managers, locally based people helping to manage this. We have also heard some great stories of clubs doing this for themselves and we commit to engaging more with them to support their work. On Universities we are expanding the network of activators on university sites and will look to promote this more widely.

In respect of the pathways, we must allow young players to follow their dreams as far as they can through the player development groups and academy systems while also working with the Premiership to actively retain good players in the community game.

Finally, we have heard questions about the governance of the Union itself. Some related to financial performance or executive pay. I promised we would publish the findings of the independent Freshfields review on the bonus award, and we commit to doing so in full.

More often, however, we were asked: whether the RFU governance is fit for purpose, does the current system represent the views and concerns of Clubs. We have also heard the need to devolve more decisions – on competition structures, priorities, and resource allocation to a more local level, where the needs and solutions are best known.

Bill Sweeney and his team have a strategy in place – signed off by the Board and Council- to address these challenges, long before the SGM was called. In my letter of January 10, I mentioned those who had pushed for the SGM had done so without setting out an alternative vision.

As I wrote last month, “we all want winning men’s and women’s England teams, and this can’t happen without a thriving community game…If we work together, we will succeed.”

The listening exercise which we are in the midst of will, I believe, lay the foundations for future success for both the elite and community game.

Achieving a common understanding of a shared purpose and vision for the RFU we can all get behind – just as we would get behind the national teams – is as important for me as continuing the men’s first XV’s form into the Calcutta Cup.

READ ONLINE >

Payment of players return due by 30th June

Age Grade Summer Activity Guidelines

RFU Community Game Update – June

Community Game Update May

Have your say on how rugby is run

Female Health & Wellbeing

Introducing Ian Davies as our 1st Guest Coach for the Cornwall XV Aside Conference

RFU Community Game Update – March

Message from Sir Bill Beaumont

Update from our roadshow of English Clubs from RFU Board Interim Chair, Sir Bill Beaumont