Surrey Clubs Council Member Bulletin #2 October 2025

 Dear All

I expect many of you will be aware of the sad loss of our dear friend John Crate last month.  He and I had served you together since August 2021 and I will very much miss his companionship and deep rugby experience.  Surrey CB have been given permission to send an alternate to Council meetings while we work out the best way to fill the role that John performed.  In the meantime, I will do my very best to make sure that you continue to have a strong Surrey voice at in all RFU meetings and discussions.

We had our first RFU Council meeting of 25/26 on 3rd October, hot on the heels of the Red Roses wonderful win at RWC25.  I could not resist the opportunity to get up close to the Cup…

We had a useful update from the CEO which covered the proposed R360 competition and the position of the major unions that players contracted to this event would not be eligible for international selection.  The International Rugby Players Association are not recommending that their members sign contracts with R360. Bill Sweeney told us that the first Nations Cup Final weekend will be held in London in Autumn 2026 which will provide a boost for rugby in England and incremental revenues. There was also good news on RFU sponsorship deals which are growing year on year and he expects to see double digit growth this financial year.  We heard that plans to invest in the Stadium are moving forward despite some opposition being expressed by local residents to the additional events being proposed to Richmond Council. The licence application needed for these additional events may be delayed until after local Council Elections take place in May 2026.

You may be aware that the new Chairman of the RFU, Sir James Wates, is a Surrey rugby man and an honorary Vice President of Dorking Rugby Club.  This was his first Council Meeting and he stressed the importance he puts on good communication.  He told us he wants to work with the media to get greater transparency about the RFU and game more generally.  In his view, England Rugby should be a dominant force in World Rugby.

Francesca Pearce, CFO took us through the budget for financial year 25/26.  This will be the second year of the RFU’s four year financial cycle when a small (£3.8million) loss is expected as a result of there being one less men’s international at the Allianz Stadium. Investment in rugby remains at £100 million of which £29.6 million will be into community clubs.  This will show as £35.1 million in the Annual Accounts where the revenue from Twickenham Experience Ltd, the joint venture with Compass, is shown in full rather than the RFU’s share.

When asked about the shortfall in merchandise supplied by Castore during the recent Rugby World Cup, we heard that there would be a full review but that Castore had acknowledged their mistake in not ordering correctly from their suppliers.

Council approved the County Championship regulations for 25/26, with two main updates.

• The eligibility criteria for Bill Beaumont Division 2 and 3 and Gill Burns Division 2 and 3 had been widened to allow Men’s players from National League Clubs 2nd XVs and below (provided that such players have not appeared on a match card for a team participating in National 1 or National 2) and Women’s Championship 1 Clubs 2nd XVs and below (provided that such players have not appeared on a match card for a team participating in Championship 1).
• The place-kicking competition which would have taken place in the event of a draw in a pool containing two counties, the quarter-finals, semi-finals or final has been replaced with a count-back mechanism

Alex Teasdale, Executive Director of Women’s Game, presented some headline statistics from the Women’s Rugby World Cup, including a record breaking 444,465 tickets sold; Red Rose social media posts receiving 120 million views; a 50k increase in RFU database growth; over 1 million now following Red Roses player channels; and over 32,000 visits to englandugby.com since thetournament.  5.8 million people watched the final on the BBC.  The new Red Roses Action Plan, running to 2030, has a goal of 70,000 female players registered with clubs and 100,000 active female players.

We discussed possible changes to the men’professional rugby system in England, and in particular how this would interact with other areas of the game. Council voted to acknowledge the need and rationale for changes to the Professional Rugby System; to support the need to find a solution to the issues indentified in discussion, and to support the Men’s Professional Rugby Board bringing proposals back to Council by February 2026.

David Roberts, Community Game Board Chair, and Steve Grainger, Executive Director of Rugby Development, provided us with an update on work to align the work of Constituent Bodies, the RFU, professional clubs, and planned Regional Growth Boards.

The proposed approach was for these bodies to begin to share their work in year 1, look for opportunities to collaborate in year 2 and be able to set up partnerships in year 3.  Any additional funding needed to support rugby delivery will come from the Strategic Growth Fund.

 The Governance and Representation Review Group, established by Council in 2023, presented its final recommendations following a wide-ranging consultation. With this piece of work concluded, Malcolm Wharton CBE is now stepping down as chair and it was agreed that the Group be reconstituted with the addition of several extra Council Members. The reconstituted Group intends to work on final plans likely to be put before Council, and ultimately the wider RFU membership, before the end of the season.

If anyone has any questions on this or any other rugby matter, please don’t hesitate to get in touch - my contact details are below.

Paula Carter

RFU Board Member

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