Stadium rules relaxed as rugby bodies agree new partnership

The Rugby Football Union, Premiership Rugby and Rugby Players Association have co-created a new Men’s Professional Game Partnership (MPGP), which includes amendments that will allow newly-promoted Premiership teams more time to achieve the required ground capacity.

New minimum standards criteria will enable clubs to move from 5,000 to 7,500, and finally a 10,001 capacity by the start of their fourth Premiership season at the latest.

The move is designed to ensure clubs have longer to bed into the Premiership and provide a smoother transition in terms of investment into their venue. From the start of the 2024-25 season, the responsibility of determining the minimum standards criteria will transfer to the new Professional Rugby Board, which has replaced the Professional Game Board.

Stadium capacity has been a barrier for Championship clubs in the past. At the end of the 2021-22 season, the Ealing Trailfinders and Doncaster Knights were denied promotion to the Premiership due to their home stadiums having a capacity of 5,000 and 5,183, respectively.

Ealing, whose stadium is pictured, also won the Championship last season but the team was once again ineligible for promotion.  

The wider, eight-year MPGP is designed to “stabilise and transform” professional rugby and create “world-leading” English teams and a thriving professional leagues system. A first-ever joint marketing agreement has also been signed between the RFU, Premiership Rugby and the RPA to increase attendances and viewership.

The RFU Council has also agreed that there will continue to be a two-match home and away play-off between the bottom-placed Premiership club and the winner of the Championship/Tier 2, provided that the latter meets the minimum standards criteria.

RFU chief executive Bill Sweeney said: “This eight-year commitment will reshape the rugby landscape and reset the professional game to support, showcase and fund our game for the next decade and beyond. We have spent the last two years interrogating the data and listening to all parts of the game to understand what we need for rugby to grow in the future, how all parts of the system interact and support each other, and where we need to focus and allocate our investment for the best outcome.

“Despite the RFU having £150m (€178m/$198m) revenue losses through COVID, and a £30m increase in operating costs over the last four years due to inflation, we are in a stable financial position. Today we have reached a significant milestone in turning our spend into the professional game into a true investment partnership with shared strategy, goals, and risks.”