Doncaster Knights owner Steve Lloyd urges caution and calls for cool heads in Championship v RFU row over Premiership 2

This week, Doncaster and the 11 Championship clubs, put out a joint statement to the Rugby Football Union in response to being told by the governing body before Christmas they will be relegated to the National Leagues if they do not sign up for a competition provisionally named Tier 2 or Premiership 2.

The RFU has invited sides who want to join Tier 2 to apply, with RFU ceo Bill Sweeney stating last month all funding for the Championship clubs – currently £160,000 per annum, down from £600,000 pre-Covid – will be pulled if they do not sign up for the new league.

The tender process opens in February, prompting the Championship clubs to seek urgent talks with the RFU.

They want more clarity about what money they will receive and the structure of the league, before committing their own finances to it.

“We would appeal to council not to approve any plans for Tier 2 until our proposals are discussed in detail and there is full clarity on these fundamental issues,” the Championship statement read.

“We have discussed this matter with Sport England because without further clarity on funding and governance, it will be impossible to ensure that Championship clubs are able to repay their Covid loans. We believe they share our concerns.”

The RFU, for their part, believe the Championship in its current format provides a poor return on investment, is commercially unviable and fails to develop sides that can compete in the Premiership if promoted.

Their vision of a new ‘Premiership 2’ would allow Wasps, London Irish, Worcester and Jersey – four teams who went bust in the last 18 months – to relaunch in the new-look second tier if they paid off their rugby creditors.

Hence, the importance of the next moves by both sides, and why Lloyd is hoping cooler heads prevail for the good of the game.

“We need to keep a balance. I don’t like the language of ‘we won’t do this and we won’t do that’, because the phrase is ‘we can’t do this, we can’t do that’, due to several things; No 1 being the funding of it,” Lloyd told The Yorkshire Post.

“If this thing is to work it would need to have an under-writing of it for a period of time whilst it gets going and then of course you hope that it wipes its own nose, that it can go forward in a self-sustaining way.”

During their own rise through the pyramid in the 1990s and early 2000s, the prospect of promotion kept Doncaster interested, which is something they would seek assurances would be retained within a new structure.

Once they reached the second tier, financial prudence has been the modus operandi of Lloyd and fellow benefactor Tony de Mulder; building the club infrastructure steadily, never stretching themselves.

“From Doncaster’s perspective, we’ve come up nine leagues, do we want to make it 10? Yes of course we do,” confirms Lloyd. “But I’m not going to do it debt-ridden like some, we’re not joining a club where you have to, a) borrow millions, and b) lose millions by being there.

“It doesn’t make sense, and sadly four clubs have already admitted that by going out of business. To sign up to enter a club like that would be total nonsense. We want to, but we are going to do it with prudence.

“These things are not yet clear, so what we are saying to the RFU and the RFU Council is let’s not hastily dive into something without clarity on all of this.”

Lloyd has been a member of the Championship executive in the past and has attended enough RFU council meetings to know the frustrations on both sides.

As the English game looks inward to try and solve problems domestically and on the international front, does he fear a knee-jerk reaction?

“I hope there is still a significant level of sensibility about it,” says Lloyd, whose Knights team return to Championship action at home to Ampthill today.

“I suspect there is an element of being fed-up about it with all the backwards and forwards, because there have been many conversations. Will they push ahead with it? The Championship is not saying we’re not doing it, we’re wanting to carry on as a whole, we want to continue the dialogue.

“But if it comes out this month that you’ve got to show an expression of interest, we cannot do that in a sincere way without more information.

“From Doncaster’s perspective, we will not cut off our nose to spite our face. If it’s necessary, would we express our interest? Yes, I would express conditional interest.

"But we’re not going to put a signature on a piece of paper until we’ve got satisfaction with the whole scenario and it makes sense.

“Right now it’s like being asked to sign a contract for a new house and then be told the price of it next year – sorry, that doesn’t work. That’s not a business or human response.

“We need to know more, we need to keep working with them, I hope they are not stubbornly saying we’re going to press on with it, because they could come out with as much egg on their face as anybody else.”

Simon Halliday, chairman of the Championship clubs, says the league have proposals ready to discuss. “If we do not jump on board with this we will be relegated to the community game,” warned Halliday.

“It shouldn’t be brinkmanship because we think we have alternative proposals that take us to the same place but in a different way – one that we all buy into.”

The key for Doncaster’s Lloyd is not to over-dramatise the situation with phrases like ‘showdown talks’, but for both sides to keep the dialogue open.

“I wouldn’t say it’s the end game,” concludes Lloyd. “It’s not the shootout at the OK Corral, I hope everybody respects that, puts aside any prejudices and looks for a sensible outcome for everybody; clubs, supporters and rugby in general.

“In 45 years of business I’ve learnt that you keep talking, you keep working, because there must be an answer. Again, it’s not that we won’t, it’s that we can’t, and if we (in the Championship) can’t, I don’t see how anybody can. I want to work through the problem, so let’s caution against rash judgments and decisions, on both sides.”