Questions over Champ playoffs with only two clubs applying for promotion

Behind-the-scenes arguments about the proposed transformation of the top tier of English club rugby into a franchise-based league are intensifying with just two Champ clubs now eligible for promotion this season. Only Ealing Trailfinders and Doncaster Knights have formally applied to be promoted to the Prem with Worcester Warriors having declined to do so.

A Rugby Football Union spokesperson confirmed on Tuesday that Worcester have taken the decision because the club is still “getting back on its feet” after its financial collapse in September 2022 with debts of over £25m. But with Ealing unable to satisfy the Prem minimum standards for the last two seasons and Doncaster currently off the pace in 10th place, it raises fresh questions about the raison d’être of the scheduled new end-of-season Champ playoffs, unveiled amid much fanfare earlier this year.

Originally it had been intended that the playoff winner should qualify for a merit-based, two-leg showdown with the Prem’s bottom side but other scenarios have since emerged. One suggestion was that the Champ runners-up should be promoted in the event of the champions being ineligible. With Worcester out of that race this season and Ealing still awaiting the result of their application, that mooted loophole is set to be academic.

It further complicates the endless debate around the future of the elite English club game. Following Red Bull’s takeover of bottom-placed Newcastle the Prem owners are now firmly against relegation, described as a “Victorian” concept in September by the Prem’s head of growth Rob Calder. The formal removal of relegation for the next five years, however, still has to be formally ratified by the Rugby Football Union Council, potentially in February.

Prem Rugby remains intent on creating a closed franchise league along the lines of cricket’s Indian Premier League, which would centralise commercial operations and, crucially, remove the threat of relegation. There are doubts, though, whether a move to 11 or 12 Prem clubs will be logistically practicable in the busy period building up to the 2027 Rugby World Cup.

Well-placed sources say there is still a desire, even so, to expand the Prem to 12 teams by 2030. “We’re all agreed on the need for expansion of the top 10,” said one league insider. The immediate stumbling block is Ealing’s suitability as a Prem side while they remain based at their Vallis Way ground. “In the current state of affairs they can’t go up because they’re not prepared to ground share [elsewhere],” continued the same official. “Either they decide to do that and meet the minimum standards or they don’t and it’s the second team in the league who goes up.”

That conclusion is fiercely disputed by Ealing, who point out their ground can now potentially hold 6,000 spectators and is technically eligible to host Premier League football and Super League fixtures. “There cannot be a circumstance in which, if Ealing finish top, we would not be allowed into the Prem,” said Simon Halliday, the ex-Championship chair who is an adviser to Ealing. “That is still our position, otherwise we wouldn’t have applied.

“If the RFU are serious about going from 10 to 12, the only way they’re going to do it is by bringing Ealing in and then bringing one more in. If they say no and say we’re going to stay at 10, you can’t take [expansion talk] seriously.”

The west London club also insist that, as things stand, their multi-sport business model is more sustainable than that of many other Prem clubs. “It’s about the whole game and the message it gives to other aspirants,” stressed Halliday. “You could argue we have the perfect business model. We don’t have our ground sitting fallow for two weeks. We don’t have an appalling deficit. Others do, which is why they’ve struggled so much and lose millions.”

What is clear is that few other Champ sides have the financial clout to challenge the elite. The existing Prem owners would love Wasps or London Irish – or both – to be reborn professionally after their financial collapses but that could be years down the track, if ever.

Cornish Pirates may conceivably be another future candidate, given the RFU’s desire for a wider geographical spread of top clubs across the country.

Interestingly, it is understood the RFU has been approached about the possibility of a top team potentially being based in Birmingham in future as part of the new multi-purpose Birmingham City stadium project. The city’s existing top club, Birmingham Moseley, sit third from bottom in National League One, the third tier of the English men’s game.

Saracens have confirmed the England forward George Martin will be joining them from Leicester before next season.