Championship shake-up as Simon Halliday urges ‘embarrassing’ England to support second tier

A new board has been assembled to lead the Championship into a “new era” while hoping to address what has been branded as the “embarrassing” underachievement of the England men’s national team since 2003.

After meetings to ratify the process over the past week, a seven-member body, known as the “tier two” board, will aim to capitalise on commercial opportunities and drive income for Championship clubs.

This comes as promotion and relegation to and from the Premiership, via a two-legged play-off, becomes a more realistic proposition for the coming season thanks to a change in minimum standards criteria for the top level of the pyramid.

The tier two board features Nick Johnston, the chief executive of Coventry RFC, Simon Beatham who previously held that position at Nottingham RFC and has been part of the professional game board (PGB), and Simon Cohen, the former chief executive of Leicester Tigers.

Conor O’Shea, the Rugby Football Union’s executive performance director, and Stuart Ramsey, the governing body’s commercial director, will also sit on it with Terry Burwell, the council member for Hampshire. An independent chair will be appointed in due course.

A blueprint for success

Simon Halliday, integral in the change to minimum standards criteria that has brought a sense of optimism to the second tier, and Alistair Bow have stepped back from their roles on the Championship clubs committee. Halliday and Bow will, however, remain in influential positions at Ealing Trailfinders and Nottingham, respectively.

Speaking exclusively to Telegraph Sport, Halliday expressed his confidence that the tier two board would further the commercial interests of the Championship by exploring broadcast deals for the competition, either through streaming platforms or free-to-air television channels.

He suggested that the presence of England Under-20 graduates on loan throughout the second tier, following their victory at this summer’s World Championship, would underline the value of the competition.

Only this week, former Ealing flanker Carlo Tizzano has been selected to start for Australia against South Africa with Pat Pellegrini, the Tonga fly-half, confirming his move from Coventry to Moana Pasifika. There, Pellegrini will join forces with Ardie Savea.

Competition structures will be discussed, too. Chinnor and Cambridge are to miss out on a 20-team Premiership Cup in 2024-25, with that tournament set to be streamlined again to 16 clubs for 2025-26.

That will add a subplot to the Championship, though, with the league’s top six being rewarded with qualification. A separate Anglo-Welsh competition between Championship sides and the contestants of the new 10-team elite domestic competition across the Severn Bridge has been mooted.

‘Unfinished business’ over promotions

Halliday did, though, warn that “unfinished business” remains over the recent change in minimum standards requirements, which now gives a promoted side four years to build up to a ground capacity of 10,000.

He urged the RFU and Premiership Rugby to “show some flexibility” so as not to “exclude clubs on that journey” towards fulfilling the minimum standards criteria. For example, Championship clubs are eager to know whether a promoted side would be automatically relegated if their ground expansion hit a planning hitch before reaching a capacity of 10,000.

The aim is for as many sides as possible to be eligible for the Premiership, with Halliday hoping that Nottingham and Bedford Blues, as well as Ealing, Coventry, Cornish Pirates and Doncaster Knights, are encouraged to work towards it.

Such clarity would also aid any “phoenix clubs” from Wasps, Worcester or London Irish that join the Championship at any stage.

“It is about the credibility of the system,” Halliday said. “We cannot have a situation that repeats what happens this year, where only Doncaster were able to be promoted and they finished sixth.

“Clubs need to be able to plan accordingly,” he added. “How can you go to investors and sponsors if you don’t know what the numbers are?”

Appropriate funding for promoted Championship clubs, so that they can thrive in the Premiership, is known to be a pressing issue, while Halliday also hopes that teams relegated from the Premiership will cut their cloth accordingly, both to avoid them falling into financial oblivion and to ensure fairness in the second tier.

There is known to be some support for the imposition of a salary cap in the Championship for these reasons.

England failures ‘a misallocation of resources’

In the week that the RFU announced a gigantic agreement to rename Twickenham as Allianz Stadium, thought to be worth in excess of £100m over the next decade, Halliday stressed that greater funding to the Championship could only improve the prospects of the national team.

Since winning the World Cup in 2003, England’s men have only recorded one Six Nations Grand Slam in 2016. In the same period, Wales have won four and France and Ireland have won three each.

“How can we have only had one Grand Slam in the past 21 years?” said Halliday, part of an England side that achieved back-to-back Five Nations clean sweeps between 1991 and 1992. “It’s embarrassing. That is a misallocation of resources and a misallocation of priority.

“We have got to get it right now. We need to understand and appreciate the quality and the value we have in the Championship.”