English grassroots clubs have been urged to respond to the “severe failures” of leading officials by voting in favour of Bill Sweeney’s removal as chief executive of the Rugby Football Union at a special general meeting (SGM) on Thursday.
It is 25 years since the RFU last faced an SGM and Alistair Bow – the Nottingham Rugby chair and co-chair of the Whole Game Union, which represents the wider English club game – has issued an open letter calling on member clubs to back a motion of no confidence in Sweeney as the first step in reforming the administration.
Bow said a further motion of no confidence in the RFU board would be tabled “in the coming days” and that the time had come to reshape the future direction of the English game for the sake of all involved within it.
In the open letter, Bow wrote: “My question to all those stakeholders is how long are you prepared to continue in letting these severe failures within our game continue? I’m sorry but if anyone thinks that we should keep the status quo and continue with the current CEO, board and governance structure then we deserve everything we have got and is yet to come.
“I don’t know of any organisation that rewards continuous failure in allowing those that have failed to take us through change. On Thursday we have the moment for change and [to] finally say enough is enough. Enough exclusion, enough failure without consequence and enough leadership that silences dissent while claiming to listen.”
In his letter Bow also referred to three Premiership clubs falling into administration in recent years, with bottom-placed Newcastle now seeking an urgent loan. Falling player participation, reduced funding and “broken promises leaving the Championship stripped to the verge of collapse” are also highlighted in addition to the controversy over Sweeney’s pay and bonus package in a financial year when the RFU made record operating losses of almost £38m and made 42 employees redundant.
The rebel clubs, Bow wrote, believe that the executive has become “untouchable” and that community rugby has been “left with no support”. His letter, furthermore, includes a request for the RFU president, Rob Udwin, to stand aside from any formal role in the SGM because he has “clearly” shown “he is not impartial”.
The clubs also say the SGM is just the first planned step in the process of reforming the RFU’s governance. “Whatever the outcome on Thursday we will only have just begun, with a second motion to be tabled for the no confidence in the board over the coming days and then going for full governance changes delivering structural reform at the coming annual general meeting,” Bow wrote.
The RFU declined to comment.
