Northern Edition

Select Edition

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

Rugby authorities launch racism probe in wake of Luther Burrell allegations

By PA
Luther Burrell (Photo by Harry Trump/Getty Images)

English rugby authorities will launch a feedback process to discover the extent of racism in the game in the wake of allegations made by former England international Luther Burrell.

ADVERTISEMENT

Burrell last month received apologies from the Rugby Football Union (RFU) and Premiership Rugby Limited (PRL) after he said racism was “rife” within the sport and that racist “banter” had become normalised among team-mates.

The RFU, the sport’s national governing body, intends to begin a joint initiative alongside PRL and the Rugby Players Association (RPA) to uncover the scale of the issue.

Video Spacer

Video Spacer

RFU chief executive Bill Sweeney has twice met Burrell in recent weeks and said the player will be “part of the process”.

Investigations are already under way to determine if any of the abuse experienced by the 32-year-old happened at Newcastle, his most recent club.

“It is very important and good for Luther to speak up,” said Sweeney. “He has been very open, very transparent. He’s explaining and telling us his feelings and his views in terms of what has happened.

“In terms of two tangible things coming out of that, we’ve reached an agreement with Newcastle in terms of what we have to do in there and to do the right appropriate independent review of what has happened there.

ADVERTISEMENT

“That is the first stage. And he is fully involved in that, he is aware of all of that.

“And then, secondly, we are setting up – I don’t have the right word for it right now – but it is basically a means and a process jointly with the RPA and with PRL to go out to the broader professional game and create the right environment for people to be able to feed back in their views.

“I think it is important to go through that because until you go through that, you don’t know, you don’t get your arms around the extent of the issue.”

Huddersfield-born centre Burrell, who is of Jamaican descent, said he has been on the receiving end of comments about slavery, bananas and fried chicken.

He hoped to “empower younger generations” by speaking out and also said he will “never name names but it’s gone on for too long”.

ADVERTISEMENT

Sweeney said: “I think Ellis (Genge, England prop) spoke, before the Australia match, and said that in his perception he didn’t feel that racism is rife.

“But then how do you define that? And what is the extent of the issue we need to address?

“Is it ignorant banter that may have been acceptable years ago but no longer is? Does that lead you down an education route in terms of what is acceptable in this day and age and what isn’t?

“So we are in that stage now, and Luther is involved in that second phase as well, so he will be part of that process.”

Burrell, who played for Sale and Northampton before representing Newcastle for the past two seasons following a spell in rugby league with Warrington, won 15 Test caps for England between 2014 and 2016, scoring four tries.

Sweeney said the RFU had previously taken steps to avoid a racism scandal similar to the one at Yorkshire Cricket Club, where charges were brought against “a number of individuals” by the England and Wales Cricket Board.

“After the Yorkshire situation – and I don’t want to critique another sport – we said, ‘let’s test our processes if we had a similar situation’,” he said.

“How would we have handled that? We had a different mechanism in place to deal with that.

“The reaction to Luther’s comments was instantaneous in terms of ‘how do we work with Luther and others to find solutions?’.

“You can never be complacent but it’s very high on our radar. We’ve got to make sure we’ve got the right systems and the right approach to manage them.”

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 1 hour ago
'Passionate reunion of France and New Zealand shows Fabien Galthie is wrong to rest his stars'

Where? I remember saying "unders"? The LNR was formed by the FFR, if I said that in a way that meant the 'pro' side of the game didn't have an equal representation/say as the 'amateur' side (FFR remit) that was not my intent.


But also, as it is the governing body, it also has more responsibility. As long as WR looks at FFR as the running body for rugby in France, that 'power' will remain. If the LNR refuses to govern their clubs use of players to enable a request by FFR (from WR) to ensure it's players are able to compete in International rugby takes place they will simply remove their participation. If the players complain to the France's body, either of their health and safety concerns (through playing too many 'minutes' etc) or that they are not allowed to be part in matches of national interest, my understanding is action can be taken against the LNR like it could be any other body/business. I see where you're coming from now re EPCR and the shake up they gave it, yes, that wasn't meant to be a separate statement to say that FFR can threaten them with EPCR expulsion by itself, simply that it would be a strong repercussion for those teams to be removed (no one would want them after the above).


You keep bringing up these other things I cannot understand why. Again, do you think if the LNR were not acting responsibly they would be able to get away with whatever they want (the attitude of these posters saying "they pay the players")? You may deem what theyre doing currently as being irresponsible but most do not. Countries like New Zealand have not even complained about it because they've never had it different, never got things like windfall TV contracts from France, so they can't complain because theyre not missing out on anything. Sure, if the French kept doing things like withholding million dollar game payments, or causing millions of dollars of devaluation in rights, they these things I'm outlining would be taking place. That's not the case currently however, no one here really cares what the French do. It's upto them to sort themselves out if they're not happy. Now, that said, if they did make it obvious to World Rugby that they were never going to send the French side away (like they possibly did stating their intent to exclude 20 targeted players) in July, well then they would simply be given XV fixtures against tier 2 sides during that window and the FFR would need to do things like the 50/50 revenue split to get big teams visiting in Nov.

307 Go to comments
TRENDING
TRENDING The Wallabies have a serious problem The Wallabies have a serious problem
Search