MARTYN SADLER, the editor of League Express, questions the role of Rugby League’s non-executive directors.
A few weeks ago Eddie Hearn, the head of Matchroom Sports, made a withering comment on Rugby League, saying in a rugby union podcast that: “Rugby League is absolutely bang in trouble.
“Stars are the most important thing (but) you don’t have any stars … for one of two reasons, one because maybe there aren’t any characters or personalities around any more, or two, they’re not accessible.”
It was a damning indictment from a man who had been linked a few years earlier as a potential recruit to help Rugby League gain a higher profile.
He was clearly speaking from a personal point of view, but in the same interview he went on to say that he couldn’t name any current leading Rugby League stars and that if he thought of the game at all, he still thought of players like Ellery Hanley and Martin Offiah.
In my view there are some great personalities and characters in Rugby League today and many of them are accessible. The problem is not that they aren’t accessible, but that they are not promoted as the great sportsmen that they are.
Why is that?
It’s not an easy question to answer in detail, but the short answer is that there doesn’t appear to be a strategy anywhere in those organisations that administer the game to promote its star players.
Instead of publicly and joyously proclaiming the virtues and values of our sport, the RFL and Super League seem to be mired in bureaucracy, such as the recent news story about grading and ranking clubs.
It strikes me that there are four key people involved in Rugby League who should be setting the pace in this regard – Simon Johnson (above), the RFL Chair, Tony Sutton, the newly appointed RFL CEO, Frank Slevin, the Chair of RL Commercial and Rhodri Jones, the CEO of RL Commercial.
Of course their roles vary. Sutton and Jones are full-time employees and therefore have to deal with the day-to-day issues that arise. I’m not certain how much time Johnson and Slevin are obliged to give to Rugby League as I have no knowledge of their contracts. But I have no doubt they will fulfil their responsibilities in the sense in which their responsibilities are contractually defined.
Whether full-time or part-time, I don’t know whether their contracts are defined to include any promotion of the game and its star exponents. If not, then in my view they should be.
Those are the four people who should be driving Rugby League forward and promoting all the great qualities that we associate with the game.
For example, did we find them all on Twitter exulting about the great Rugby League we saw over the Easter weekend last month?
As far as I can tell, the only one of the four with a Twitter account is Simon Johnson, who does sometimes tweet about Rugby League but infrequently. The other three are absent, as far as I can tell.
And what about the other non-executive directors of the RFL, who are all paid significant fees for their contributions to the organisation?
Rimla Akhtar is certainly the most active on Twitter, as far as I can tell. She did tweet recently about Nene Macdonald having played for Leeds Rhinos while fasting during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and she also tweeted about Bradford Bulls hosting an Iftar (the breaking of the fast) at Odsal. At the weekend she tweeted about England’s two 64-0 victories over France.
Her fellow director Sandy Lindsay is very active in several Manchester-based organisations. Although having an active Twitter account, she hadn’t tweeted about Rugby League for several weeks until last week tweeting in praise of Swinton Lions’ work in the community and Salford’s efforts to raise funds with their new community share initiative.
And, as far as I can tell, Dr Cherrie Daley doesn’t have a Twitter account.
Then we come to the non-executive directors of RL Commercial.
Anna Chanduvi hasn’t tweeted about anything since April 2021. Ed Mallaburn, of IMG, doesn’t appear to have a Twitter account. Peter Hutton tweets very infrequently, but he did tweet out a match report in The Guardian of the opening match of the Women’s Super League season between Leeds and York. Jonathan Murphy, the CEO of Assura PLC, is another who appears not to have a Twitter account, or at least one that I can easily find.
In the RFL’s last published accounts, Simon Johnson was paid £48,750 as the Chair of the organisation, and the other non-executive directors each received £24,375.
Without wishing to impugn their roles, it would be very useful to know what they are actually expected to contribute.
Simon Johnson is said to be a very effective chair of RFL Council meetings and he played a key role in getting the clubs onside to support IMG’s grading proposals in the RFL Council vote last month.
But I wonder, if and when they hear the criticisms of Rugby League made by Eddie Hearn and others, whether they reflect on their own role in failing to promote the culture, values and outstanding sporting action that Rugby League represents to a wider audience.
If I ran the RFL I would have someone with the responsibility of producing short items of footage of superb action each week and I would ask everyone in a senior position to promote those items in all their social media outlets to make those players who do such great things much more well known.
I struggle to understand why something like this isn’t happening.
As we saw for England on Saturday, whether men or women, there are some great stars and strong personalities playing Rugby League at the highest level.
But who knows?
And if we don’t do more to promote our stars, we can hardly be surprised if the next TV broadcast deal offered by Sky Sports is disappointing.
This is a modified and expanded version of an article that first appeared in Martyn Sadler’s ‘Talking Rugby League’ column in a recent edition of League Express. To take out a subscription to League Express, go to https://www.totalrl.com/league-express/
