It seems clubs below the Championship will get £23M. Not sure what this works out per club. Any ideas.?.
Lots of people getting very excited about this over on Rolling Maul, all of whom seem to have missed the point that when you look at the numbers (which are excitingly large) aren't they made up of a mix (admittedly low interest and long term) loans and grants? Bill Sweeney's said that the RFU will be working to determine which bits of the game get what mix. I can't see the sense in offering either the 'grass roots' some debt, or the Championship some free money. God knows where that leaves National One.
So the Championship clubs on paper are looking at £750k each, which sounds great (and more than their central funding was supposed to be for 2020-21 ironically), when really what they might end up being offered is an exciting opportunity to add nearly a million quid's worth of debt liability to their bottom line. Which, to a club playing in a league as exciting and dripping with earning potential as the Championship (or let's be honest in any league below the Premiership) suddenly doesn't look as great.
I wonder if it'll end up being like the RFL, who were awarded a tranche of money earlier in the year, then watched the queue diminish as clubs realised what the strings were and thought they'd be better up making deeper cuts than further borrowing? AIUI they've actually got money left in the pot at the moment after a few high profile clubs at Super League level said openly that they wouldn't be touching it and frightened off some of the others.
Don't want to be too down on it because if a club is really desperate then borrowing's better than folding. But the narrative seems to have taken hold this afternoon that this is all free grant money, and it very much isn't.
Last Edit: Nov 19, 2020 16:16:11 GMT by southernmose
Agree with Southern Mose - if the terms are significantly better (longer) than commercial loans, then it might help short term cash flow. But taking on more debt is likely to store up problems for later.........unless there's some miraculous boost in earnings on the coming seasons to pay it back. On the positive side, if it saves even a single club then maybe worth a gamble?
Decent summary in the Independent (once you've got past the Football moaning):
