Northern Edition

Select Edition

Northern Northern
Southern Southern
Global Global
New Zealand New Zealand
France France

Premiership unveil the perfect weapon in battle for control of English rugby

England’s players sing the national anthem

England’s top professional clubs have found the perfect weapon in their on-going battle for control of the game by appointing Ian Ritchie, the former Rugby Football Union chief executive, as their new chairman.

ADVERTISEMENT

It is a clever move, giving Premiership Rugby a unique insight into how the RFU works and how it wants to shape the future of the game in England – a strategy Ritchie led during his five years in charge of the biggest and richest union in the sport. Ritchie handed over the CEO role to Stephen Brown, of his former key advisors at the RFU last May.

Besides his five-year tenure at the RFU, which included hosting the 2015 Rugby World Cup, Ritchie is the former CEO of the All England Club which stages the Wimbledon championships, was a non-executive director at the Football League and Wembley Stadium and has vast experience of television rights negotiations.

He was elected unanimously by the Premiership Rugby Board of Directors for a two-year term which will start next month and Semore Kurdi, current Chairman and the owner of Newcastle Falcons said, “I’m delighted that Ian has agreed to become Chairman. We are in a period of significant domestic and international growth for the club game, with this weekend’s big Aviva Premiership Rugby matches just one example, as they will be seen in some 200 countries around the world.

“Ian will undoubtedly add to our ability to realise the full potential of the league. I have enjoyed my time in the Chair and I look forward to working with him through this next phase.”

Ritchie said: “Premiership Rugby has become one of the foremost competitions in professional sport and I’m pleased to be taking the Chair at this time. Clearly, the partnership with the RFU is central to the success of both club and country and I look forward to helping ensure its success.

“I take over the Chairmanship with Premiership Rugby in great shape and I would like to record my appreciation of Semore’s role over the last two years in the continued success of Aviva Premiership Rugby. I look forward to helping build on this.”

ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT

LIVE

{{item.title}}

Trending on RugbyPass

Comments

0 Comments
Be the first to comment...

Join free and tell us what you really think!

Sign up for free
ADVERTISEMENT

Latest Features

Comments on RugbyPass

J
JW 4 hours ago
'Let's not sugarcoat it': Former All Black's urgent call to protect eligibility rules

Yep, no one knows what will happen. Thing is I think (this is me arguing a point here not a random debate with this one) they're better off trialing it now in a controlled environment than waiting to open it up in a knee jerk style reaction to a crumbling organtization and team. They can always stop it again.


The principle idea is that why would players leave just because the door is ajar?


BBBR decides to go but is not good enough to retain the jersey after doing it. NZ no longer need to do what I suggest by paying him to get back upto speed. That is solely a concept of a body that needs to do what I call pick and stick wth players. NZR can't hold onto everyone so they have to choose their BBBRs and if that player comes back from a sabbatical under par it's a priority to get him upto speed as fast as possible because half of his competition has been let go overseas because they can't hold onto them all. Changing eligibility removes that dilemma, if a BBBR isn't playing well you can be assured that someone else is (well the idea is that you can be more assured than if you only selected from domestic players).


So if someone decides they want to go overseas, they better do it with an org than is going to help improve them, otherwise theyre still basically as ineligible as if they would have been scorning a NZ Super side that would have given them the best chance to be an All Black.

147 Go to comments
TRENDING
TRENDING Kieran Read names his 2025 British and Irish Lions captain Kieran Read names his 2025 British and Irish Lions captain
Search