I am delighted to see that Coventry Rugby Club have applied to be approved as eligible for promotion to the English Premiership under the rules about stadium capacity. As they sit at the top of the second tier, for now things are looking up although there is a lot of the season still to go.
I have written here before about the travails of being a Coventry rugby supporter. I am always tempted to blame myself. Fifty years ago when I really became aware of their existence as my maternal grandfather was a supporter they were one of the great names of English rugby and winners of the then Rugby Football Union Cup for two seasons in succession. After I started supporting them it seemed to be all downhill.
When the league structures came into place in the late 1980s they lasted one season in the top tier before being relegated. While the club had clearly lost its way, there was every reason to hope that before too many years passed they might climb back up again, but it was not to be.
In part this was due to Cov's further off-field problems, including nearly going out of business twice. But the real issue was that a few years after the game went professional, the route back to the top tier was blocked by the restrictive practices of premiership clubs (£), whose owners believed that as they had invested in the game at a crucial time, their clubs should be protected from the jeopardy of relegation for all time.
They did this through a system that provided much lower funding for promoted teams and rules governing stadium standards and capacity, requiring clubs seeking to join the premiership to have a ground capacity of more than 10,000. Given planning and land ownership constraints this is all but impossible for many clubs and unfeasibly expensive for everyone. It has had the effect of fossilising the top tier of the game.
It is also a nonsense, because premiership teams compete in European competitions against clubs with stadiums that would not reach premiership standards - and apparently without adverse consequences. For example, as I can testify from recent experience, Benetton's 5,000 capacity Stadio Monigo in Treviso (above) has an amazing atmosphere when full and looks pretty good on television too.
Earlier this year there seemed to be a relaxation of the premiership's protectionist rules, with acceptance that a promoted team could have four years to increase capacity from 5,000 to 10,001. But then the RFU stuck in a clause saying planning permission had to be secured before promotion for the new criteria to be met. This again puts prohibitive costs of obtaining planning permission in the way would-be promotion candidates, particularly as the whole thing may prove unnecessary if they don't go up or do but go straight back down again.
Cov's latest application comes with a clear suggestion that legal action may be necessary to get the RFU to back down and an expression of confidence that this will be successful. I note that at least one legal commentator has suggested that the minimum capacity rule
is likely to breach competition law, as the restriction of competition and/or abuse of dominant position it entails cannot be justified by reference to a legitimate objective
Perhaps the RFU will see sense in time to avoid a costly legal battle, but I'm not holding my breath.
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