Post by Steve@Mose on Apr 18, 2024 0:03:13 GMT
A Daily Telegraph article on rugby outside of the top two tiers:
Stacks of cash under the bed and £6,000 transfer fees: Community rugby’s ‘Wild West’
Stacks of cash under the bed and £6,000 transfer fees: Community rugby’s ‘Wild West’
Special report: Semi-professional status brings ambiguity and player payment is the subject of whispers up and down the country
The accusations began back in September, about half an hour into the first competitive game of the season. Having just been promoted into the seventh tier of English rugby union’s league system, Teddington stormed out of the blocks against Hove, only for their opponents to begin sneering: ‘Phwoar, how much are you paying?’
A 72-17 victory set the tone for Teddington’s campaign in two different ways. Firstly, they kept winning, securing another promotion. But they would also continue to cop similar jibes.
“Every week, it’s been: ‘You haven’t won the league, you’ve bought it,” explains Teddington’s fly-half, Bob Beevers.
To the uninitiated, this may seem like an odd allegation - but player payments all the way down rugby’s pyramid are rampant. And, according to the gossip swirling around the Counties 1 Surrey/Sussex league, Beevers is paid £500 per game. This very claim was made independently to Telegraph Sport about a month ago.
“Other than playing at Twickenham last year, that could be the highlight of my rugby career, people thinking that this slightly pot-bellied fly-half is on £500 a week,” the 35-year-old Beevers laughs. “I’d gladly take it, but it’s not the club we are.”
Teddington insist they do not pay players. However, chatter swells quickly. History is littered with clubs bounding up the pyramid before hurtling back down – and sometimes disappearing entirely – when cash runs out.
The issue of player payment in the men’s ‘community game’, defined as the third tier and below, is causing exasperation around the country, and a murky omerta shrouds the area.
Semi-professionalism is inherently ambiguous, and players are thought to have received as much as £300 in match fees in the eighth tier. Others have been persuaded to move clubs over a £20 difference in match fee. Telegraph Sport has even been told of a transfer saga that saw a £6,000 sum exchanged between two fifth-tier teams.
One interviewee recalled a prop, still in his kit, being passed an envelope containing £300 by a sponsor on the touchline. The former skipper of a side in National 1 stockpiled a stack of £50 notes, worth around £10,000 in total, under his bed. Some particularly creative money men are even thought to cover their squad’s phone bills and weekly shops.
“It’s more than the Wild West; it’s deliberately destructive to itself,” was one scathing description of the current semi-professional landscape, where it is not unheard of for players to ask fourth-tier clubs for sign-on bonuses.
Given three Premiership clubs and the professional arm of Jersey RFC, who had just topped the Championship, have all unravelled since September 2022, how can so much money be sloshing around lower leagues?
The accusations began back in September, about half an hour into the first competitive game of the season. Having just been promoted into the seventh tier of English rugby union’s league system, Teddington stormed out of the blocks against Hove, only for their opponents to begin sneering: ‘Phwoar, how much are you paying?’
A 72-17 victory set the tone for Teddington’s campaign in two different ways. Firstly, they kept winning, securing another promotion. But they would also continue to cop similar jibes.
“Every week, it’s been: ‘You haven’t won the league, you’ve bought it,” explains Teddington’s fly-half, Bob Beevers.
To the uninitiated, this may seem like an odd allegation - but player payments all the way down rugby’s pyramid are rampant. And, according to the gossip swirling around the Counties 1 Surrey/Sussex league, Beevers is paid £500 per game. This very claim was made independently to Telegraph Sport about a month ago.
“Other than playing at Twickenham last year, that could be the highlight of my rugby career, people thinking that this slightly pot-bellied fly-half is on £500 a week,” the 35-year-old Beevers laughs. “I’d gladly take it, but it’s not the club we are.”
Teddington insist they do not pay players. However, chatter swells quickly. History is littered with clubs bounding up the pyramid before hurtling back down – and sometimes disappearing entirely – when cash runs out.
The issue of player payment in the men’s ‘community game’, defined as the third tier and below, is causing exasperation around the country, and a murky omerta shrouds the area.
Semi-professionalism is inherently ambiguous, and players are thought to have received as much as £300 in match fees in the eighth tier. Others have been persuaded to move clubs over a £20 difference in match fee. Telegraph Sport has even been told of a transfer saga that saw a £6,000 sum exchanged between two fifth-tier teams.
One interviewee recalled a prop, still in his kit, being passed an envelope containing £300 by a sponsor on the touchline. The former skipper of a side in National 1 stockpiled a stack of £50 notes, worth around £10,000 in total, under his bed. Some particularly creative money men are even thought to cover their squad’s phone bills and weekly shops.
“It’s more than the Wild West; it’s deliberately destructive to itself,” was one scathing description of the current semi-professional landscape, where it is not unheard of for players to ask fourth-tier clubs for sign-on bonuses.
Given three Premiership clubs and the professional arm of Jersey RFC, who had just topped the Championship, have all unravelled since September 2022, how can so much money be sloshing around lower leagues?
