30 Rugby Leaguer & League Express www.totalrl.com7th June 2021

  A four-page open letter has been circulated by Sandy Lindsay, a director of the RFL and Chair of the Community Board, in support of the RFL’s proposal to make an annual charge to all amateur Rugby League players, including children.

The letter is full of contentious statements, with one stating categorically that as regards the RFL’s financial position “we certainly do not have a deficit,” which is blatantly not correct.

However, the open letter does not show any contact details and therefore I would like to respond through your Mailbag pages.

The open letter indicates that the RFL does not have a deficit but the RFL’s financial accounts for the year ended 31st December 2019 clearly show on the balance sheet a very substantial accumulated deficit of £3,243,009.

I have not yet been able to obtain the accounts for the year ended 31st December 2020, but do not anticipate that there will have been much improvement, if any.

The RFL sidelined BARLA apparently at the behest of Sport England and yet Super League Limited was formed and subsequently there has been a complete duplication of all the operating costs, from directors’ remuneration and salaries through to printing and stationery, amounting to hundreds of thousands of pounds each year being spent unnecessarily.

They have also compounded this by distributing excessive amounts to the professional clubs and have, because of this, in my opinion, created the deficit described above.

Now the RFL wants the amateurs to cover the deficit. Is this fair? This should not happen without full meaningful discussions taking place in order that all the alternatives that are available are taken into account.

All of the grassroots clubs should be involved and all the amateur leagues.

The underhand way in which these charges have been put forward is nothing short of disgraceful and reflects very badly on the RFL and all concerned in trying to implement the charges.

Terry Everson, Chairman, West Hull ARLFC

EVE OF DESTRUCTION?

In 2004, the RFL published its strategy document for the evolution of Super League through the period 2005 to 2008.

I have just pulled it out again and, re-reading it, I am reminded just what an excellent document it was.

You may not have agreed with its ultimate conclusions, but there’s no gainsaying that it was short, lucid and mercifully short on jargon. More important still, it must have been well advertised, else why would I have known to get hold of a copy at all?

Moving forward to the recent announcement of the RFL’s plans for Academy rugby, for me, at least, this came out of the blue.

I suggest the recommendations make little sense. They look to lie somewhere between the divisive and the destructive. We’ve been though the rejection of reserve-grade football, the comedy of dual-registration and now this.

Maybe somewhere there’s a current strategy document that would make all things clear and to which I could subscribe. If so, it is being kept well out of my sight.

But let’s go back to the 2004 document, section 9.7.

“The Academy concept is well established and it must be compulsory for Super League clubs to compete in both Academy competitions. It is it not acceptable for clubs to continue to survive in Super League by yearon-year relying upon young players discarded by those clubs with productive Academy set-ups.”

Straight forward common sense! But that was back then.

I cannot quite put my fingers on the moment when I realised that the RFL had descended into crass amateurism. But what I can fix, with exactitude, is the point in time when I realised that, for the want of sympathetic, professional leadership, the game on which I was brought up was destined for extinction.