The RFU is midway through its latest review to better cater for the needs of the 1,500 rugby clubs in its membership and they urgently need nurturing
It has been a bad month for the RFU. The furore sparked by the recent decision to cut funding for the Championship has revealed a fault line running throughout rugby union in England. It might best be termed as the tension between recreation and ambition, community and elitism, the amateur ethos and the professional.
The question has never quite been resolved since professionalism. What is the purpose of the clubs beneath the elite? What is the purpose of the sprawling, seamless pyramid of leagues in which they play? There are those at the heart of it now proclaiming the future death of grassroots rugby, a slow strangling of the community game.
Written by Michael Aylwin
This news first appeared on https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2020/feb/28/rugby-union-needs-to-wake-up-to-the-slow-strangling-of-the-grassroots-game under the title “Rugby needs to wake up to the slow strangling of the grassroots game”. Bolchha Nepal is not responsible or affiliated towards the opinion expressed in this news article.
